Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin seeds are a healthy snack, easy to make and pretty much free to make as favors or party food from your pumpkin carving.  I baked several kinds and bagged them in cute paper bags as favors one year.

 

We usually carve 4-10 pumpkins depending on how excited we are and how many people come over to help so we always have lots of seeds.  While carving we keep bowls on the table to dump seeds and pumpkin guts into.  Once you are ready to make yours, gather the bowls up and head to the kitchen.

• Cover three baking sheets with foil and get 3 large mixing bowls.  You will also need paper towels, a strainer and a spatula or large serving spoon.  Get out some oil and any flavorings or spices you would like. Preheat oven to 400.
• Sort through the bowls from carving and pull out large bits of pumpkin and tough strings.  I generally enjoy a little pulp stuck to the seeds so I do not clean mine completely, you can clean them to your liking.  Rinse in the strainer so they do not soak in the water.
• Once they are rinsed and mostly dry add equal portions to each mixing bowl and get ready to season.
• I always make 3 batches of flavors; sweet, spicy and salty.  You can use anything you prefer, these are just guidelines.
• Salty- drizzle enough oil to barely cover the seeds and generously sprinkle with salt and some pepper.  Fine salt works best for this.
• Sweet- drizzle with oil and add sugar, cinnamon, freshly ground nutmeg and a little salt.  You can also add some course colored sugar if you want, it looks nice on the finished product.  I like to add some brown sugar and any other things I find in the pantry that looks good.
• Spicy- drizzle oil over seeds and add a little hot sauce as well as some cumin, season salt, pepper, garlic powder, cayenne, a little nutmeg, paprika and a generous amount of chili powder.

• Once you have added whatever seasoning you prefer, toss each bowl to coat all seeds evenly and spread them on each of the 3 baking sheets.  Bake them at 400 for 20 minutes.
• Spoon into bowls lined with paper towels to soak up extra oil and sprinkle all with a little extra salt.
• Once they are dried and cooled you can add them to whichever vessel you would like to serve them in.
• I used black and orange mini paper bags.  I folded the top over and cut two slits in the center then threaded a piece of ribbon through it and tied a knot.  I also added a candy or leaf sticker and marked the bottom to let people know what flavor they were.  If you plan to store these for very long I would suggest putting them in zip top bags before you put them in the paper bags so they do not soak the bag with oil.

You can use any seasoning you prefer, we tried sesame oil and ginger one time and that was good.  You can pretty much just raid the pantry and use whatever you have.  I have seen other people soak theirs in very salty water first so the flavor goes through the shell or in water with food color added so they are dyed.  Experiment!

liz