Decor or Delicacy?: A review of three pumpkin seed recipes

Even though pumpkins are a staple fall decoration, their nutritional insides are often tossed out after a pumpkin carving session without being used. While it’s much easier to buy your pumpkin flavored fix at the nearest Price Chopper, after a quick Pinterest search I found three pumpkin seed recipes to keep my favorite fall decoration from going to waste.

Before I could get started on the recipes, I had to do the less glamorous part of the process — weeding out the seeds. While pumpkin guts up to your elbow isn’t the most pleasant feeling, there’s no better way to get into the fall spirit. Once I got the seeds separated and rinsed I could prepare my spices for each of the three flavors:  cinnamon-sugar, everything bagel and regular roasted with salt.

This was far less technical than you might expect. I eye-balled a cinnamon-sugar mixture, grabbed my “Everything But the Bagel” seasoning from the pantry and went to town with the salt shaker until I thought each batch of pumpkin seeds looked adequately seasoned.

Baking the seeds thankfully involved less digging of pumpkin guts. I simply sprinkled each topping over the seeds on a baking sheet and popped them in the oven. Not even ten minutes after, my kitchen was filled with both sweet and savory aromas — enough to make even my picky little brother’s mouth water. After letting them cool for 10 minutes, I came back into the kitchen to find a half-empty pan due to my family’s tendencies to snack on anything and everything.

I did a quick taste test myself and rang in the results. The traditional salted ones didn’t hold as much flavor as I would have hoped, but they’re something I would reach for when I want to snack mindlessly. The “Everything but the Bagel” seasoned seeds were more pleasing to my taste buds, but that could just be because everything bagel seasoning is good on anything in my book. These seeds were a crowd favorite by my family and I’ve already been asked to make them again.

My personal favorite were the cinnamon-sugar seeds. These are just what I needed to keep from sifting through the bucket of halloween candy for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. They were the perfect blend of crunchy and sweet and quickly satisfied my post-dinner sugar cravings — making them worth the orange stains on my sweatshirt.

The next time you’re hollowing out a pumpkin to carve, save the seeds and make the perfect crunchy snack. A quick toss in the oven will help utilize every aspect of your fall decor.