Season’s Eatings – Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

My daughters never agree on any food. Ever. I swear it’s a conspiracy. They have to be planning this. For example, the only meats that the Younger Girlchild eats are pork tenderloin and shrimp. The only meats the Older Girlchild would not eat if they were the last foods on earth are, you guessed it, pork tenderloin and shrimp. The Younger Girlchild loves mashed sweet potatoes but hates sweet potato home fries. The Older Girlchild only like sweet potato home fries. Cooking for them is an exercise in remembering who ate the night before.

Having said this, there is one food that the Girlchildren can agree on. They both LOVE roasted pumpkin seeds. Seriously love them. Eat-their-respective-weights-in-them love them. Which is why I was greeted at the door early this morning with a bag of slimy pumpkin seeds. It seems that the Girlchildren carved Jack-o-lanterns with their dad this weekend, and they insisted on bringing me the seeds to roast.

So here is my recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds. I know that there are thousand and one recipes out there, but this is what the Girlchildren have grown up with and seemingly crave. I have included a sweet version, but my family is all about the savory!

Lee’s Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients

• 2 cups pumpkin seeds, rinsed well and patted dry on a kitchen towel
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• A couple of dashes of hot sauce (I like Cholula for this)
• ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
• ¼ teaspoon cumin
• ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika (you can use either hot or mild, depending on your family’s tastes!)
• ¼ teaspoon Kosher salt (if using regular table salt, used 1/8 teaspoon)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 300°. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium high heat. Add in the Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, garlic powder, cumin, smoked paprika, and salt and stir to combine. Add in the pumpkin seeds and stir to coat. Sauté for about 4 to 5 minutes.

Line a baking sheet with either foil or parchment paper and spread the seeds out on it evenly. Roast in the 300° oven for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool and enjoy! These supposedly keep for about 5 days in an airtight container, but they never last longer than a day or two at my house!

Honey Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

This was something that I did for a catering job, waaaaaay back in the Late Pleistocene when I was a caterer. They were very popular!

Ingredients

• 2 cups pumpkin seeds, rinsed well and patted dry on a kitchen towel
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 to 3 tablespoons honey (you could substitute maple syrup for the honey)
• Kosher or flaky sea salt, to taste (please don’t use table salt for this; the crunchiness of the salt is part of the yumminess!)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 300°. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt the butter and add the pumpkin seeds. Stir to coat with the melted butter and sauté for about 4 to 5 minutes.  Drizzle in the honey (or maple syrup) and stir to coat. (If you like things a little spicy, add in a pinch of cayenne. Yum!)

Line a baking sheet with either foil or parchment paper and spread the seeds out on it evenly. Roast in the 300° oven for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the kosher or flakey sea salt. Allow to cool and enjoy!

Lee Virden DuBose is a jack of all trades, master of none. She has been a bank teller, a chef and caterer (both in restaurants and in private service), a bookkeeper, a trainer, a legal assistant, and a writer. She is a proud graduate of the University of the South with a degree in Early European History. She planned to be a professor but realized in the nick of time that professors have homework, which she never did when she was a student, so what made her think that she would do it as a professor? While she has not used her degree in her, er, varied employment history, she is fabulous at cocktail parties. Most importantly, Lee is the proud single mother of two absolutely amazing girls, to whom she refers in social media as the Girlchildren.