Garden Life is a day early this week for several reasons. One is that it’s Thanksgiving and two is that Mackenzie is turning 3 tomorrow. So my Friday is going to be SUPER busy as I prepare for our turkey dinner on Saturday and celebrate a bit with our little girl. Hence the change. Next week, it will be back to the regularly scheduled programming. 

Earlier today, I shared how to make your very own pumpkin puree. It’s a very easy process and you are left with the very tasty and healthy (especially for men) by-product of pumpkin seeds. I have to admit that I’d never really eaten too many pumpkin seeds until we started on our low-carb diet. I was looking for something which I could snack on that would give me protein without a ton of carbs, and a bag of mixed nuts became my friend during afternoon hunger pangs.

Roasting pumpkin seeds is a very easy process, and although you don’t necessarily end up with a huge yield from small pie pumpkins, it’s totally worth it. And a lot of fun to do with kids. You can roast seeds from just about any sort of pumpkin as well as many larger squash versions like turban squash (which have firmer seeds).

To me, roasted pumpkin seeds (sometimes also called pepitas) using this recipe taste a lot like popcorn. So if you’ve never had them and are wondering what the big deal is, that’s what’s up. Pumpkin seeds without their lighter colored hull are usually green, but with this method, you can usually eat the whole seed pod without shelling (which is wonderfully convenient). Some larger pumpkin seeds will need a longer cooking time or you’ll end up with very chewy, rather inedible seeds with seed coats that are impossible to remove.

There are a few ways of roasting pumpkin seeds, but the method I’m going to describe leaves the seeds with a lightly salted taste and a wonderfully crunchy, puffy texture. You really need to be careful when roasting them, though, because if you leave them in a few minutes too long, you’ll end up with seeds that taste (and smell) like burnt popcorn. And I don’t know about you, but that’s certainly not one of my favorite things to eat.

The basic process is very simple and looks a bit like this…

First, you want to scoop out all of the seeds and put them into a bowl. I have these in a strainer, but you really don’t need to wash them or anything.

Then you’ll need to go about separating the pulp from the developed seeds. I say developed because you’ll also probably have a lot of soft, small seeds in the pulp which can be roasted, but turn into something more like puffed rice. In the picture below you can see the really large seed in the middle, and the small seed to the left of it which is lighter in color. When you have them in your hands, you’ll notice that the undeveloped seeds are basically just seed coats with no green seed inside.

Once you’ve got your seeds collected, you want to quickly measure them before simmering them for about 10 minutes. You measure them to determine how much water and salt to cook them in (which I’ll detail in the recipe below).

After boiling, you’ll roast the seeds in the oven for 10 – 20 minutes (small pumpkin seeds are on the 10 minute side) and then they’re ready to eat!

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