Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

As a kid, when we carved pumpkins, our dad would take the seeds and roast them.  This year, I bought my first pumpkin since I've been married; and I couldn't let those delicious little seeds inside go to waste, so I hopped online and started researching different methods of roasting pumpkin seeds.  After I kind of figured out what I wanted to do, I scraped the seeds out of my pumpkin, washed them, and had them drying when my dad called.  I told him what I was doing, and he told me he had the best pumpkin seed recipe.  So I tried his method, and I was quite pleased with the results.


Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Seeds from 1 pumpkin (1 to 1 1/2 cups)
1 Tbsp. butter, melted
Salt, to taste

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

Clean the pumpkin off the seeds.  Dry them as well as you can with a paper towel.  The seeds will stick to the paper towel, so just brush them off.  Lay them in a single layer on a baking sheet and place in oven for about 5 minutes, stirring halfway through.  This is simply to thoroughly dry them off, not to roast them.  Once they're dry, take them out of the oven and toss them with the butter and salt.

Place them back onto the baking sheet and spread the seeds into a single layer.  Roast in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until at least half of most of the seeds are browned (they will start browning from the pointy end of the seed and the other half will still be white).  Remove from the oven and let cool.



And here's a bonus of picture of the pumpkins our amazingly talented dad carved of the grandkids last year!  Check back next week for this year's carvings!  Also, if you're interested in what I used my pumpkin for, be watching in the next couple of weeks and I'll tell you!