Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Come on, you knew it was coming. Carve pumpkins, must roast pumpkin seeds.

My mom-in-law and I (well, 95% my mom-in-law and 5% me because she's good like that), tackled these recipes from Relish Magazine (for the recipes, click here), and they turned out splendidly. 

My photos of this process are limited, since separating pumpkin seeds from pumpkin goo is ridiculously messy, and because pumpkin seeds look pretttty much the same before and after roasting, except dry and not slimy.

Here are two photos of pumpkin-goo-separating from a previous year, just to get the point across.

Once you have completed the pain-staking process of separating out the mass of seeds from the pumpkin goo, rinse them off in a colander until the remainder of the goo is gone. (If you can complete this step without several seeds going shooting across the kitchen...I want to shake your hand.)

Spread out the cleaned seeds on a large baking pan. Dry your pumpkin seeds in a 300 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then, toss with your seasonings of choice and roast at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until fragrant and crisp.

These are the two recipes we made (again, from Relish Magazine), which were yummy.

Sweet & Salty (my personal favorite)

2 cups dried pumpkin seeds

2 tbsp melted butter

3 tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp coarse salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Spicy Herbed

2 cups dried pumpkin seeds

1 tbsp chipotle chili powder

1/2 tbsp onion powder

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp dried parsley

1/2 tsp coarse salt

Both these recipes are great, but somehow, I still wish I had done just some plain salted pumpkin seeds, with maybe a little bit of garlic powder. Because garlic powder makes everything better. And keeps the vampires away.

What kind of seasonings do you put on your pumpkin seeds?

Pre-baked, while mixing in the brown sugar mixture for the "Sweet & Salty" version.