Pumpkin seeds

Today is the day that I sacrificed my Halloween pumpkin for pumpkin pie.

If I was connected to the land, I would first plant seeds (planted them a week ago- no sprouts yet- hope for pumpkins in the spring!).

Then the plants would grow and blossom.

Pumpkin growing: link to photo information

Here is a close-up of a plant growing in the field (photo found here):

A field of pumpkins near harvest:

Pumpkin field in Oregon

And here is where mine ended up before the sacrifice!  Doesn't it look like a preparation for a sacrifice!

The preparation:

The cutting:

The scooped goods before cleaning:

After cleaning and draining:

Melt a little butter

Throw in the seeds

Add a little salt and stir until well coated with butter- don't need to brown:

Remove from pan, and spread out on a baking sheet.  Don't use a grill pan like me.  Envisioned these great grill marks on the seeds- instead just had a pain removing them from the pan.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes-unless you are using a cast iron baking sheet- then you need 15 minutes to heat up the grill pan.  They look like this when done:

This is the finished product draining on paper towels:

While I am doing this, I am also baking the pumpkin for pies later- but that is a story for another day...

After this stage, I let them sit on the counter until the pumpkin was done cooking- by that time they were soggy.  Put them back in the oven and promptly forgot about them for another 15 minutes when they looked like this:

They are not burnt, they are plenty crispy, but to me they are overdone.  You may want to check yours every 5 minutes until they are crispy again but still have some life in them!  This blog at this stage will then not be an expert's blog but an experimenter's blog- someone who was once close to nature but moved away about 45 years ago and is just rediscovering it. 

Maybe this is a more interesting approach than being an expert!  However, when I like a recipe, I'll make a printable version!


Happy Saturday!