Sometimes we all need a little treat.
I don’t tend to buy crisps, crackers or olives to nibble at with a glass of wine unless we have guests. I don’t know why… maybe I think we don’t deserve it or maybe it is that we are fat enough and having extras isn’t a necessity. Perhaps I think it is a needless extravagance?
But you know what? We do deserve to have something every now and again. After all, the person I like best in the world would be sharing them with me and I’m happy enough to put stuff out for people I don’t love half as much.
So, what follows is the ideal compromise. It’s healthy, it’s tasty and it doesn’t cost very much at all.
I’d bought a small pumpkin to make some Puy Lentil and Pumpkin Soup and I’d had to scoop out all of those plump seeds. What better than to use something that others might just throw out?
They are all embedded in the fibrous middle but they are easy enough to remove if you gouge at it all with a spoon.
If you put them in a colander and run water over them it’s quite easy to pull the orange fibres off, leaving just the seeds behind. They will feel very slippery so give them a good rub in fresh water.
Once they are clean, spread them, out on a board and leave them to dry off.
This time I wanted plain and simple butter and salt roasted pumpkin seeds (I often make them and flavour them with things like chilli powder or spices ) but there’s something rather delicious about the plainness of the roasted seeds… plain, certainly but tasting deliciously of butter and salt!
Get a flat baking tray and put a knob of butter and some salt on it (I always use a silicone sheet because it is so easy to clean and doesn’t tear if you scrape at it. If you haven’t got any, it doesn’t matter – use tin foil or be prepared to clean the baking tray)
Put the tray in a pre heated oven at 200 degrees C/390 degrees F and get the butter melted and hot.
Toss the pumpkin seeds in the melted and salted butter and put them back in the oven for ten minutes or so.
After ten minutes, give them a shake… they should be browning nicely.
Put them back in if they need a few minutes more – this will depend on how much moisture was left in the seeds.
Once they have cooled… put them in a bowl and share with your best friend.
A glass or two of wine makes this the perfect pre-dinner snack – healthy, tasty and all it took was a knob of butter, ten minutes and some otherwise thrown away seeds!
Now have a craving for them. Must pick up a pumpkin or two, Pumpkin soup sounds lovely, seeds spiked with cayenne so good.
Also pumpkin lovers you must try Pumpkin Custard.
Pumpkin custard? Is that sweet and to serve with other stuff?
remember playing with seeds during childhood days coz they are slimy when it is water, mum used to use them in indian sweets but pealed ones, this is awesome, coz making use of the complete pumpkin am more inclined towards chilly pwd and spices 😀
Ooh, my family and I love toasted pumpkin seeds. We mix them with other nuts and seeds and roast them plain. Makes a relatively healthy snack for the small ones after school, and for the big ones as we’re making dinner. I like the way you dressed yours up a little and paired it with wine. Well, anything pairs well with wine if you think about it!
I can’t believe that for years I used to throw pumpkin seeds away. They are delicious! You know, you don’t actually need to remove all the stringy stuff, it enhances the taste. On the other hand it makes even cooking of the seeds difficult and it affects the storage of them – the stringy stuff is more prone to mold.
I tried this once as I like the Pumpkin seeds that you can buy in health shops. However, once cooked, mine were toothbreakingly hard: all husk with no flavour and pretty much inedible, even though I followed a very similar method to you. I ended up annoyed I had spent time cleaning them just to throw them all away. Not sure what I did wrong but think from now on I will just stick to making them into soup, etc…!
hopeeternal
‘Meanderings through my Cookbook’
http://www.hopeeternalcookbook.wordpress.com
Well, BB… next time I will not bother to clean so well (though a good run under the tap separated it well) and the fact it would go mouldy in time wouldn’t worry me…. they were scoffed pretty quickly!
And Hopeeternal…how long did you cook them for? Perhaps they were in too long? It took maybe ten minutes. They were so lovely I even used bought seeds to make more!
I love pumpkin seeds. Simple or spiced up – any way they are delish! My new discovery is cinnamon sugar pumpkin seeds – try it! Yum!
For all the spices and flavourings in the world… I can’t think of a better accompaniment to these seeds than butter and salt. Mmmmmmm!! I’m the opposite Wendy, I am such a crisp fiend! Well done for resisting them, they’re deliciously evil 🙂