Seed Savvy

It's that time of year when you can just feel fall is in the air. The smell of burning leaves is all around, football is in full force, except for the Bears, and kids all over want to carve pumpkins. Carving pumpkins has always and will always be one of my favorite things to do. I can still remember doing it as a kid and I remember when my dad brought home these new pumpkin carving knives for kids. You know the kind that are all over now with the orange handles and dullish blades, but can they slice a pumpkin! I still have the original ones my dad brought home. In fact, I used it last night. It still has the black sharpie Dana in my mom's handwriting on it so that there would be no fights over who's knife is who's. Hey Dena, I have yours too.

I really don't remember saving and roasting the seeds though. I can't tell you if we did it and I just don't remember or if it is one of those things we never did, like Jiffy Pop.  Yep, I was in my 20's the first time I ever did Jiffy Pop. Anyway, Jasen and I have always roasted the pumpkin seeds. We did it when we were dating and we do it now. He loves them and it is something he remembers doing as a kid. So the tradition continues.

Last night all four of us carved pumpkins, carefully saving the seeds. The kids did a wonderful job of drawing faces onto the pumpkins and I carved them out. We put candles in them and lit them up. They are so cute, but once they were lit and on the porch, we came inside and I started my quest for delicious pumpkin seeds.

Freshly washed pumpkin seeds
just waiting to become a yummy
delicious snacky.

Pumpkin seeds can be tricky. Yes, very tricky. They can be too salty, not salty enough, to wet or even worse, burnt. Burnt pumpkin seeds are as bad as burnt popcorn. You just don't want it. You have to have the pumpkin seed skills to make a great seed and it seems to me that I do have those skills.

Here is what I did:

Warning, this is one of those things that I make that I do not measure, at all. I will do my best to describe what happened, but go with your personal tastes to make it perfect for you.

On the stove top, melt a stick of butter. I know, a whole stick.

Melted butter and garlic.
I could just dive right in.

Add fresh pressed garlic, about 4-5 cloves. The trick to getting it to go through your garlic press the easiest, put the cloves into the microwave to 15-20 seconds. It will get hot FAST, so don't over do it. You will not believe how easy it is to peel and to press.

5-6 cranks on your sea salt grinder and about the same for black pepper.

Add the seeds and let them saute in the pan for about 10 minutes stirring all the time.

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Dump the sauteed seeds and all of the butter and seasonings on the a cookie sheet and spread them out.

4-5 more cranks of sea salt and black pepper, a couple shakes of garlic powder and then shake grated Parmesan cheese all over them. Yes, everyone knows I love to add cheese to everything, but add it, you will like it. I promise.

Mr. Pumpkin Seed 2010

 

 

 

Put them in the oven for 10 minutes, at the 10 minute mark, stir, flip, mix, whatever, but smooth them back out. Do this 2 more times, so 30 minutes total. They should be getting pretty dry by now.

You want them to be dry, but not burnt. That is where the tricky part comes in. When they are near the end of cooking, you really have to babysit these bad boys or you will have crappy burnt seeds on your hands. No one wants crappy burnt seeds, so trust me, watch them.

There you have it! Take them out and let them sit on the cookie sheet to cool.

They should be this golden
color when they are done.

When they are completely cool, then and only then, put them into an air tight container. If you do this when they are the least little bit warm, condensation will form in the container and that will ruin your seeds.

There you have it. Delicious, addictive, oh so good, pumpkin seeds.
Get out and get your own today.