Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Carving pumpkins has always been one of my favorite childhood memories.  The best part about it is getting to dig out the guts and seeds and make a mess with your parents permission, then they clean it up for you!  The only thing about it is, all the pumpkin seeds go to waste!  I remembered that in preschool I'd had roasted pumpkin seeds and loved them, so I thought I'd try to make them and see how they turn out.

So, this recipe is a compilation of all the recipes I saw, it doesn't have any real measurements, you can just throw the ingredients together, literally.

Ingredients

Pumpkin seeds

Salt

Seasonings (if you want them)

Instructions

1.  Carve a pumpkin.  This is the fun part. :) Make sure to save the seeds in a bowl separate from the rest of the guts.  It's alright if there is some guts in it, you'll get rid of that later.

2.  Rinse the seeds in a colander (strainer) to get the rest of the pumpkiny sludge off of them.

3.  Leave the seeds to sit out overnight on a cookie sheet so they dry out.  I ended up leaving the seeds out for a full 24 hours, mixing them up in the morning before I left the house and actually making them when I got home from school.

4.  Sprinkle salt and any other seasonings you'd like to the seeds.  I added salt and Tastefully Simple's Everyday Seasoning to give it an extra kick.

5.  Bake the seeds at 300 degrees farenheit for 35 minutes.  Stir the seeds after 20 minutes.  I also add a few more sprinkles of the Everyday Seasoning to the seeds once I stirred them.

6.  Let the seeds cool before eating.  Let them cool for at least 24 hours before storing so they don't become soft.

I ended up making about six cups of roasted seeds.  I was carving pumpkins with friends so I got six cups from six pumpkins.  This is a lot more seeds than it sounds like, so they will probably last my family a few weeks. The recipe turned out really well.  It is by no means set in stone, rather it's extremely flexible and can be changed to fit the tastes of almost anyone.  Salted pumpkin seeds isn't the only kind of roasted seeds either, there are also spicy, Italian, and sugary recipes among others.

Hopefully this gives you something to do with your seeds rather than just throw them away, Happy Early Halloween and enjoy!! :)