Sunday, October 27, 2013

Salted Caramel Pumpkin Seeds

As established in my previous entry, I will gladly consume anything that contains pumpkin, but I've never eaten a pumpkin seed in my life. Until today, that is.

People have always raved about pumpkin seeds. I've even had people request the seeds from the pumpkins I've carved in the past. The thought of eating a pumpkin seed has just always seemed so unnatural to me. Until I found a recipe for Salted Caramel Pumpkin Seeds. At that point I was sold.



This past Wednesday, Zach and I visited a pumpkin patch at a local church and bless him for being so patient and so willing to put up with my indecisiveness because I think he picked up and moved at least ten (large) pumpkins in order for me to do side by side comparisons. In all fairness, it was his idea, but we eventually found our perfect pumpkins and then we carved them this weekend.


Zach is one of the people that has always raved to me about (his) pumpkin seeds. So it was already determined that we'd be making them. After carving the pumpkins, we washed the seeds and set them out to dry overnight.

And here is all you need to make them yourself!


INGREDIENTS:

2 cups raw pumpkin seeds, rinsed and pat dry
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Nonstick cooking spray
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon each, brown sugar and granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, mix sugar, and cinnamon. Add seeds and toss to coat evenly. Spread on the baking sheet and spray with cooking spray. Bake seeds until lightly golden, 20 to 25 minutes.
Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Stir in sugars and salt; cook until deep golden brown, 1-2 minutes. Reduce heat to low and stir in seeds; coat with buttery caramel mixture and cook an additional minute. Remove from heat and let cool before serving.
(The original recipe called for nutmeg and ginger, but we opted to leave that out and I can honestly say I don't miss those flavors.) 
These turned out so great and I can honestly say that, even though it still feels a little unnatural to eat them, I understand the hype around pumpkin seeds....or maybe it's the salted caramel aspect of these seeds because who doesn't love anything salted caramel? 
Oh, and here are our finished pumpkins :) 

No comments:

Post a Comment