Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

 With the help of Lance, I roasted some pumpkin seeds for the first time last night! It was really simple actually, and Lance really enjoyed helping out. We decided to experiment a bit and made a salty batch and a sweet batch (brown sugar and cinnamon). Well I might have burnt the sweet batch...so needless to say they were not a crowd pleaser.....BUT the salty batch really turned out well and I will definitely be making up another batch of those! Here is how we did it, in case you want to give it whirl yourself.

We hollowed out the pumpkin and then took out all the seeds and put them on a baking sheet (while we were outside). Then we brought the seeds in the house rinsed them off in a strainer, getting all the little stingy orange stuff off of them. The next step was to put the seeds on a paper towel to let them dry for a few minutes. We also patted them dry to help this step go faster. After they were dry to out liking, we divided our seeds into the two groups, salty and sweet, although this is obviously not needed if your just making one big batch. Then I poured regular table salt on top of the seeds and mixed them around with a wooden spoon. After mixing well I added only about 2 tsp. of veg. oil and then mixed well again. To prepare my baking sheet I sprayed it well with Pam baking spray (HINT: I read to avoid using a spray with butter, it tends increase the chance of burning the seeds.)

To roast the seeds....a lot of things I checked out varied in temp. from 200 to 350. I really depends on how much you want to keep on eye on them...at higher temps they brown quicker so you need to be really watching them closely (or they burn like mine second batch might have...smile). I would say to go with 250 to 300 and then check them every 5-10 minutes and flip them to be sure they cook evenly. When putting the seeds on the pan be sure they are all flat on the sheet. (not piled on top of each other).
Ours turned out really yummy and make a great snack! I know there are a tons of different flavors you could make your seeds...lots of things you could try....So don't throw away all those seeds...Bake them for a yummy, healthy treat instead!

On Friday I will share what I did with the rest of the pumpkin!!

DANIELLE