Saturday, November 6, 2010

Using it all- Pumpkin!

I am not sure there is anything in the world like pumpkin. You can use SO MUCH of it, it's ridiculous. As I was walking in Walmart on November 3rd, I noticed their jack-o-lantern pumpkins were on sale for $0.50. That's right! Half a dollar! I have been wanting to try roasted pumpkin seeds, so I bought one. The smaller cooking pumpkins were $0.78 a pound. Way more expensive!

The difference is that pie pumpkins are smaller and tend to be sweeter and smoother. With just a little more work, my pumpkin will be just as good and hey- CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!




Here is my gutted pumpkin in the crockpot! I first squeezed out the seeds (before gutting the pumpkin!). I find it to be much easier because the "string guts" attach the seeds to the wall and it helps me to just pinch the seeds off! I then used an ice cream scoop to get the guts out. This pumpkin will cook on low in the crockpot overnight (or longer!) before being made in to pumpkin pie filling.


Here are a small sampling of the pumpkin seeds! I used The Green Bottle's guide to roasting pumpkin seeds, so check her blog out here if you've never done it before! These seeds are seasoned only with garlic salt and black pepper. I found them very bland and wouldn't recommend this seasoning.


Here is the Green Bottle's recipe- garlic salt, season all, black pepper! These are probably my favorite for just sitting around and munching.

My own special recipe. These are Tim's favorite, because they have a spicy kick! Want to know the recipe? I can't tell, sorry hehe.



Here are the three sets of pumpkin seeds pre-baking. Yum yum!

I'll be adding the pumpkin pie recipe soon!

-Kristen