Happy Halloween!
Mr. O received a jolt of Halloween spirit this afternoon, and came home with two pumpkins! You can check out his mad pumpkin carving skills here, but I was more excited to have the pumpkin seeds!
I have tons of great memories of Halloween when I was little – the great costumes my mom made by hand, parties at school, and trick-or-treating with all of the neighbors (one year someone even dressed up as the headless horseman and rode a up and down the street on a horse!)
By far my most fond memory is carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds. Dad and I would cut, gut and carve (well, Dad did most of that, because the guts were icky), and mom would roast the pumpkin seeds. I was the taste tester, and I was darn good at it.
It’s been many, many years since I’ve had roasted pumpkin seeds, so I was super excited when Mr. O walked through the door, ready to carve! I immediately called my mom to find out how she roasted the seeds.
Mr. O cut the tops off, and I cleaned out the guts (still icky, but I’m a big girl now!).
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While he got to carving, I pulled all the seeds from the guts…
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…and soaked them in some water for a few minutes.
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I swished them around a little bit to make sure all the guts were cleaned off, rinsed them in a strainer and dried them a little bit on some paper towels.
Then I tossed them around in a bowl with a little drizzle of olive oil and just a sprinkling of salt, laid them out as evenly as possible, and popped them in a 325° oven for 10 minutes.
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After 10 minutes, I pulled them out, stirred them around a little bit, and popped them back in the oven for another 9 minutes. If you have an oven that doesn’t always seem to be at the right temperature, start checking them around 8 minutes so they don’t burn. (They don’t really brown on the outside shell, but the little seed on the inside can burn if the roast too long.)
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Just pop them out of the oven, sprinkle with a little salt and enjoy! When they are warm, they taste just like hot buttered popcorn – YUM!!
What are your favorite Halloween traditions?
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