George the Pumpkin's Tragic End

A couple weeks ago, my mom bought me a pumpkin at the grocery store.  It was one of those moments where she really didn't see a need to buy a pumpkin... but I was bouncing up and down and saying excitedly that we could name it George and pleasepleaseplease could we buy George, take him home and give him a theme song??

My cuteness won her over eventually.

That or I was embarrassing her...

I did end up singing "George, George, George is a pumpkin!  WATCH OUT FOR THAT GOURD!" till the end of our shopping trip..

Yeah. I'm pretty sure it was the cuteness....

Anyway, yesterday I decided that it was time for George to make a nice exit.  He had graced the center of our table long enough...It was time to disembowel him and eat his innards. (ha.)

Sooo I googled.  And decided I would toast and sugar some pumpkin seeds.  The recipe turned out delicious, even though I kindof changed some things ;)

 

Ingredients

• One medium sized pumpkin
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Vanilla (optional)
• Cinnamon and sugar (optional)

Preparation

1 Cut open the pumpkin by cutting a circle around the stem end, and pulling off the top. Use a strong metal spoon to scrape the insides of the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds and strings. Place the mass of pumpkin seeds in a colander and run under water to rinse and separate the seeds from the everything else.

2 Measure the pumpkin seeds in a cup measure. Place the seeds in a medium saucepan. Add 2 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of salt to the pan for every half cup of pumpkin seeds. Add more salt if you would like your seeds to be saltier. Bring the salted water and pumpkin seeds to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.

3 Preheat the oven to 400°F. Coat the bottom of a roasting pan with olive oil, about a tablespoon. Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan in a single layer. Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 5-20 minutes, depending on the size of the seeds. Small pumpkin seeds may toast in around 5 minutes or so, large pumpkin seeds may take up to 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the pumpkin seeds so they don't get over toasted. When nicely browned, remove the pan from the oven and let cool on a rack. *If you want your pumpkin seeds with vanilla and cinnamon and sugar, all you have to do is pour a little bit of vanilla and sugar mixture into the pan and mix it all up.  Then pop it back in the oven till their nice and crispy.*  Make sure you let the pumpkin seeds cool all the way down before eating!

 

-- RM