Monday, October 29, 2007

Happy Halloween!



We pretty much, with very little exception, carve pumpkins every year. I like to recruit as many willing participants as possible to join in on the mess making, and this year some friends were kind enough to let us carve pumpkins at their place!
Mine (sunglasses & mustache pumpkin) is on the far left, next is Nate's scary face pumpkin, then Adam's vampire pumpkin & Erin's super happy pumpkin!

We don't live in a "neighborhood" environment and don't think we've had a trick or treater in the past 5 years, so this evening of carving pumpkins and watching Bravo's Top 100 Scary Movie Moments special on Saturday turned out to be our big Halloween happenings this year.

Here's my "seeds" recipe- although we ate them too fast for me to get a pic!
De-gut seeds as well as possible, then place in a large bowl and wash remaining guts off by swishing around and "kneading" seeds in the water, drain & repeat until seeds are all clean.
Then I pour them out onto a paper towel covered platter to dry a bit, pat dry on top with another paper towel.
Let sit for about an hour, then spread evenly over a wax covered cookie sheet and let dry overnight. Separate any that stick together and spread foil over a cookie sheet, grease lightly w/ non-stick spray & spread seeds over in an even layer.
Spray with Misto olive oil sprayer, sprinkle with kosher salt, cayenne pepper and a little chili powder.
Bake at 300 for 10-15 minutes, then turn- spray other side and bake an additional 10 minutes. My oven is insane so I really had to keep an eye on these because it changes temp at it's own will and these do go from perfectly roasted to burn-city quick in that situation :)

Wishing everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!

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