After yesterday's somewhat desperate post by my mother, I have decided to take a day away from her and post something with pumpkins for the sake of my father's peace of mind. So here we are: Karen cooks!
For those of you who don't realize, Karen CAN cook. She just tends to have bad luck. Luckily I picked a recipe which is pretty much stupid proof. PUMPKIN SEEDS! Now it'd been a while since I had done pumpkin seeds (read: 15 or so years) so I turned to the ever faithful internet for a few recipes for doing pumpkin seeds.
First off, I would like to thank my dear friend Nessa for allowing me to steal her pumpkin seeds, while we brainstormed other uses for pumpkin seeds, including armored "seed mail." Now! Off to the kitchen!
I chose three separate recipes, and collected all my ingredients.
And yes. The laptop protected with saran wrap is part of the cooking process. Sue me, I didn't want to print off the recipes. Also part of the cooking process is having a cat wrap itself around your ankles while you try to cook, begging for scraps, before you banish them to their own food.
The first recipe is a simple, salted pumpkin seed recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen blog. Original recipe can be found here.
For those of you who don't realize, Karen CAN cook. She just tends to have bad luck. Luckily I picked a recipe which is pretty much stupid proof. PUMPKIN SEEDS! Now it'd been a while since I had done pumpkin seeds (read: 15 or so years) so I turned to the ever faithful internet for a few recipes for doing pumpkin seeds.
First off, I would like to thank my dear friend Nessa for allowing me to steal her pumpkin seeds, while we brainstormed other uses for pumpkin seeds, including armored "seed mail." Now! Off to the kitchen!
I chose three separate recipes, and collected all my ingredients.
And yes. The laptop protected with saran wrap is part of the cooking process. Sue me, I didn't want to print off the recipes. Also part of the cooking process is having a cat wrap itself around your ankles while you try to cook, begging for scraps, before you banish them to their own food.
The first recipe is a simple, salted pumpkin seed recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen blog. Original recipe can be found here.
Ingredients:
2 cups of pumpkin seeds
2 Tbsp salt
~1 Tbsp-ish olive oil (you'll see why I use this massively accurate number later)
Season salt (I use Lawry's.)
Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat. However you don't have to be perfect. Then you wash them (we're into like, professional cooking here people, hold onto your hats). Put seeds into a pot with water, add salt, stirring occasionally. Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to medium and let simmer for ten minutes. Seeds will now be a bit darker than they were when you started. Drain seeds with strainer, and get out a cookie sheet. I covered mine with foil for less mess. Yay less mess.
Here's where you get out your olive oil. The PW recipe called for you to just...add the oil to your cookie sheet. This didn't seem like it would coat the seeds very well to me, until I recalled mother's french fries. So I took out mom's handy olive oil spritzer, and liberally sprayed the bottom of the pan. Then I spread the seeds out evenly, coating the top also with lots of olive oil. Then I lightly dusted the whole pan with season salt.
Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until a golden brown. You'll want to shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These were more of a dry, bland taste, but still good.
The second recipe I did was extremely simple. This one was a lot lower on the salt, but also required butter. This is the extremely simple salted pumpkin seeds recipe. The recipe I used can be found here, however I modified it a bit.
Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin seeds
2 Tbsp margarine, melted
1/2 tsp salt
Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat. Rinse seeds, then dry. Now, any of you who have ever tried to DRY pumpkin seeds know it's a bit hard--pumpkin seeds start slimy, then go sticky as they dry. So the best way I found to dry the seeds was to spread them evenly on a towel, then press them between it and another towel. They still stick to the towel a bit, but it's a lot easier than trying to pat dry them.
Afterwards, scoop back up the seeds into a mixing bowl. Melt butter and salt, then drizzle over the seeds. Mix it all up so that all the seeds get coated. Then spread seeds over a cookie sheet.
Melt butter and add salt, making salty butter solution (oooh, science-y word!). Bake at 300 degrees for about an hour, or until golden brown. Shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These ones are very reminiscent of sunflower seeds in flavor and texture.
The last recipe is a more flavored roasted pumpkin seed. I got the recipe off of here.
Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin seeds
1 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp margarine, melted
1 Tbsp-ish of seasoned salt
Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat (sound familiar?). Rinse then dry, then put in a mixing bowl.
Combine other ingredients and mix together well.
...well, that doesn't look particularly yummy, but it's the prep steps, geeze!
Next you will pour other ingredients over the seeds, mixing them well so they're all coated with the liquid.
Spread evenly over cookie sheet, then bake at 300 degrees for about an hour, or until darker brown. Shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These ones have a strong, more robust flavor; crunchy on the outside, soft seed on the inside, also very much like a sunflower seed.
Of all three recipes, mom and I agreed that the second and third were our favorites.
Thing One out.
2 Tbsp salt
~1 Tbsp-ish olive oil (you'll see why I use this massively accurate number later)
Season salt (I use Lawry's.)
Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat. However you don't have to be perfect. Then you wash them (we're into like, professional cooking here people, hold onto your hats). Put seeds into a pot with water, add salt, stirring occasionally. Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to medium and let simmer for ten minutes. Seeds will now be a bit darker than they were when you started. Drain seeds with strainer, and get out a cookie sheet. I covered mine with foil for less mess. Yay less mess.
Here's where you get out your olive oil. The PW recipe called for you to just...add the oil to your cookie sheet. This didn't seem like it would coat the seeds very well to me, until I recalled mother's french fries. So I took out mom's handy olive oil spritzer, and liberally sprayed the bottom of the pan. Then I spread the seeds out evenly, coating the top also with lots of olive oil. Then I lightly dusted the whole pan with season salt.
Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until a golden brown. You'll want to shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These were more of a dry, bland taste, but still good.
The second recipe I did was extremely simple. This one was a lot lower on the salt, but also required butter. This is the extremely simple salted pumpkin seeds recipe. The recipe I used can be found here, however I modified it a bit.
Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin seeds
2 Tbsp margarine, melted
1/2 tsp salt
Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat. Rinse seeds, then dry. Now, any of you who have ever tried to DRY pumpkin seeds know it's a bit hard--pumpkin seeds start slimy, then go sticky as they dry. So the best way I found to dry the seeds was to spread them evenly on a towel, then press them between it and another towel. They still stick to the towel a bit, but it's a lot easier than trying to pat dry them.
Afterwards, scoop back up the seeds into a mixing bowl. Melt butter and salt, then drizzle over the seeds. Mix it all up so that all the seeds get coated. Then spread seeds over a cookie sheet.
Melt butter and add salt, making salty butter solution (oooh, science-y word!). Bake at 300 degrees for about an hour, or until golden brown. Shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These ones are very reminiscent of sunflower seeds in flavor and texture.
The last recipe is a more flavored roasted pumpkin seed. I got the recipe off of here.
Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin seeds
1 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp margarine, melted
1 Tbsp-ish of seasoned salt
Clean pumpkin seeds so there's no extra pumpkin guts in with them. Pumpkin guts are gross to eat (sound familiar?). Rinse then dry, then put in a mixing bowl.
Combine other ingredients and mix together well.
...well, that doesn't look particularly yummy, but it's the prep steps, geeze!
Next you will pour other ingredients over the seeds, mixing them well so they're all coated with the liquid.
Spread evenly over cookie sheet, then bake at 300 degrees for about an hour, or until darker brown. Shift/mix the seeds about halfway though to prevent burning or uneven cooking. These ones have a strong, more robust flavor; crunchy on the outside, soft seed on the inside, also very much like a sunflower seed.
Of all three recipes, mom and I agreed that the second and third were our favorites.
Thing One out.
1 comment:
Yikes! I forgot to steal some when I was over there.
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