Pumpkins, part one

I have a love/hate relationship with pumpkins. I LOVE that they represent autumn, cool weather, harvestiness, and October. I love having pumpkins as decoration. They make my house homey. They are orange. They are happy.

That's about where my fondness of pumpkins ends. Some people eat them. They see pumpkins as pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin doughnuts, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cheesecake, etc. I do not eat these. I do not like them Sam I Am. Perhaps it's not necessarily the pumpkin I despise, it's probably more the spices that always accompany such foods: cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, nutmeg--all things I try to avoid.

However, there is one part of the pumpkin I do love. The seeds! Roasted pumpkin seeds are such a nice treat and I made them today. Come along with me on a pumpkin seed journey.

It started a few weeks ago when Katie and I went to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch. I'm going to spare you the story of how disappointing and boring Ferrara's Happy Apple Farm is, but that's where we got our pumpkins.

Boring Apple Farm

Katie amongst the punkins

Here is my pumpkin. A small one, but that's just what I wanted. It has served as decoration for a few weeks now and today I turned it into a recipe.

I sliced open my pumpkin and dug out the seeds.

Once I got rid of the orange pulpiness, I rinsed the seeds in a colander...

...then boiled them! I had never done this before but I recently read that boiling will result in shells that are less tough. So they boiled for ten minutes...

...then I drained them in a colander and dried them thoroughly with a paper towel.

I tossed them with olive oil and sea salt and roasted them in the oven at 325f for 12 minutes, stirring half-way through.

And now I have a nice snack!

Aren't you jealous?

At this point I will say that I do like Pumpkin Spice lattes from Starbucks and, on occasion, pumpkin ice cream :)

See you tomorrow!

xoxo

stef