I love pumpkin time. One reason is because it’s almost time for Halloween, which is the most fun holiday if you have a kid. Another reason is because it involves pumpkins, and from pumpkins come ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS. And I’m going to tell you how to make them awesome.
Step one:
Drive out to the country and find a place that has CHEAP pumpkins so you can buy a LOT.
There’s a farm by my parents’ house that has pumpkins for $1 each. That’s right. I would never…EVER go to a place that sells pumpkins for more than that. Those farms that have slides and bouncy things and hayrides are great for kid fun, but when they try and sucker you out of $10 for a pumpkin? No bleeping way. Distract your kid and get out of there. Tell them those pumpkins are all already sold but you’ll get some later. Then when you go drop $10 on 10 pumpkins they’re like WHAAAAAAAT?
Step 2:
Convince your kid (or loved one) that it’s really fun to pull the guts out.
It’s totally OK to do this because they are ultimately going to make YOU carve faces into the 10 pumpkins that you had them gut. Get ready for your hand to get reaaaal tired, hombre (or hombrette).
Step 3:
DO NOT wash the seeds.
Yes, pick the large chunks of guts, etc off them, but do not wash them clean. Pumpkin is just a big squash, right? Right. So those guts add flavor. Yummy Flavor.
Step 4:
Prep and cook the seeds.
- Spread them out on a greased, buttered, or sprayed cookie sheet (you’ll need like 1 sheet per pumpkin load of seeds)
- Salt them to your liking so you can control the salt portion (we care about your health)
- You can put a couple blobs of butter around the pan if you want.
- This may vary, but cook in 350° oven for 20 minutes move them all around with a spatula about halfway through
- Keep your eye on them so they don’t burn.
Step 5:
Put them in fancy jars and enjoy.
Step 6:
Ohhhh, you almost got away without carving the pumpkins.
Let your kids art direct your carvings. My daughter wanted spooky, scary pumpkins so she chose some out of a pumpkin carving kit and put me to work.
And boy are my arms tired.
3 Comments
Andres
That is an awesome carve job, but I wished you would have put the seeds in a wine glass and then talked about the bouquet and the tannins or whatever the pumpkin equivalent is.
Daddy's in Charge?
I don’t know why we always washed them all these years… They taste like crap. I will make sure not to show my kids your pumpkins as I will be carving them tomorrow. I’m thinking triangles and a toothless smile should do for another year.