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| Toasted Pumpkin Seeds |
We carved pumpkins this year, I don't usually carve a pumpkin at Halloween but where we are living now there is a great spot on the windowsill for showing them off and the pumpkins were on offer in our local supermarket so I couldn't resist. Our pumpkins turned out well but the best part was making these tasty toasted pumpkin seeds with the pumpkin innards.
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| Jack our pumpkin guards the toasted pumpkin seeds |
We were left with a lot of seeds which we decided to toast with some spices. I first soaked the seeds in salt water overnight to give them a lightly salted flavour. This is easier than trying to get salt to stick to the outside of the seeds.
The pumpkins seeds have a natural creaminess to them, warm from the oven they are hard to resist but munching on a handful of these while watching TV is great too. You could add any spice or herb mix to the seeds, I went for paprika.
After soaking the seeds, I rinsed them off in cold water and patted them dry. I then sprinkled them with paprika and toasted them on a baking tray in the oven at 150c for 20 minutes.
I made these toasted pumpkin seeds in two batches as they need to be laid out flat, if they over lap on the baking tray the seeds don't dry out properly. I left them to cool, again in a single layer on my wooden chopping board. The pumpkin seeds were too small to lay out on my wire cooling rack.
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| Cool the seeds before storing them |
Are you carving a pumpkin this year?
Don't throw away the innards give these toasted pumpkin seeds a try.
You could add any spices to these, keep them in an air tight container and they will last for a few weeks.