Pumpkin Seeds

My son asked me if he could put his hand in a pumpkin. Both boys got to pull out the pumpkin goo in preschool. I guess by the middle of October it's expected that you've already put your hand in a pumpkin. With Halloween looming, we put our hands in pumpkins.

I cut the top off of the pumpkin and the boys pulled out the slime, seeds, and goo. The seeds run along the creases of the pumpkin, so we tried to save all the seeds. We put the seeds in one bowl, and the the fleshy tissue in another. We soaked the seeds in water to remove all the slime surrounding them. We took all the seeds out of the water and let them dry on a paper towel.

The dry seeds were put on two baking sheets. One for sweet and one for salty. We put 3 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt on the pumpkin seeds. The boys mixed everything. We made sure the seeds were all coated and spread them out. We baked them for 20-30 minutes at 350. The key is to make sure the sugar doesn't burn. 

The second baking sheet was the salty batch for my husband. We put 2 teaspoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of chili powder, and 1 teaspoon salt on top of the clean dry pumpkin seeds. We baked them for 30 minutes at 350.

If we could do it over again I probably wouldn't cook the sweet seeds so long. They were a little burnt. I would add more salt and chili powder to the second batch because the seasoning wasn't very strong.

We carved the pumpkins and put them on our front porch. We are starting our Halloween preparation.