Savory Seeds

One of my family's favorite fall activities is roasting pumpkin seeds. It has been a fond memory of mine as far back as I can remember. I love that my kids enjoy it as much as I did as a child (still do!). We enjoyed going to the pumpkin patch for my birthday this past weekend, but we normally forgo pumpkin patch prices and head on over to your neighborhood Wally World.

Bright orange, round, shiny pumpkins. Nothing beats them for instilling the feeling of autumn (and my birthday!). So we brought our three beauties home and spent time this evening cutting them open and scooping out all the innards (good red-neck word).

Separating the seeds from the strings was a bit tedious, but we got the job done. Even if there were lots of ewwwws! and yucks!

After I spent time rinsing, and rinsing, and rinsing, and rinsing the seeds. They were finally ready to go on the pan for roasting. I tried them this year with olive oil instead of butter to make them a bit healthier and I actually liked it better. After roasting for a good hour or so, they were finally starting to turn just a bit brown.

A little while later, they were ready to come out of the oven and looked so nice in the pumpkin dish my mom gave me. Here are the kids enjoying the fruits of their labor. Enjoying their salty seeds with some homemade chocolate milk. I found a recipe for some awesome chocolate milk that is really good -you got to try it ~ Way better than Hersheys! We'll enjoy our seeds while they last and then have to wait again until next year.....