Tuesday, October 25, 2011

By Popular Demand: Roasted Pumpkin Seeds


It is no secret to anyone that I love salty snacks!  You can keep the cake, cookies, and ice cream.  I crave salty and crunchy.  With everyone carving their pumpkins around this time of the year, I have had several people ask me if I have a recipe for roasting pumpkin seeds.  No surprise, of course, I do!  This salty snack is as easy as it gets, and kids will love helping out.  I find that their little fingers are perfect for sorting through the pulp to find the seeds.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

1) Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2) Separate the pumpkin seeds from the pulp and rinse the seeds in a colander.  Shake off the excess water.
3) Oil a baking sheet.  Spread the seeds in a single layer on the sheet.  Roast in the oven for 30 minutes to dry out the seeds.
4) Remove the seeds from the oven and toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper (or additional spice flavors).  Return to the oven and bake an additional 20 minutes, until crisp and golden.  Enjoy!

Here are some yummy flavor combinations that I found in Food Network Magazine this year:

Sweet
Toss with cinnamon and sugar (do not use salt in step 4).

Indian
Toss with garam masala; mix with currants after roasting.

Spanish
Toss with smoked paprika; mix with slivered almonds after roasting.

Italian
Toss with grated parmesan and dried oregano.

Barbecue
Toss with brown sugar, chipotle chile powder and ground cumin.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great pumpkin faces, and obviously skilled carvers. Pretty great faces on them too. Love to all, G&P