Pumpkin Seeds – Cleaning, roasting, uses

[gingerpeach]

... you can even do this with normal squash seeds--it's awesome....

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I roasted some acorn squash seeds the other day - they were awesome. Added just a little olive oil and salt, and roasted alongside the chicken. Just as good, if not better, than the squash.

[designchick88]

Never tried roasting squash seeds, although I probably will now.

With pumpkin seeds, we usually wash all the pumpkin guts off, spread them on a cookie sheet, spray with olive oil and sprinkle with Old Bay or Chachere's Cajun Seasoning (mmmmmm prefab) and roast at 350 until they're browned and crackly. We don't shell them before or after roasting, just eat 'em whole.

Pumpkin seeds have something in them that's really good for you. Can't remember what it is offhand.

I am new here btw.

[Smithy]

Never tried roasting squash seeds, although I probably will now.

With pumpkin seeds, we usually wash all the pumpkin guts off, spread them on a cookie sheet, spray with olive oil and sprinkle with Old Bay or Chachere's Cajun Seasoning (mmmmmm prefab) and roast at 350 until they're browned and crackly. We don't shell them before or after roasting, just eat 'em whole.

Pumpkin seeds have something in them that's really good for you. Can't remember what it is offhand.

I am new here btw. 

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Welcome, designchick88! Stick around and enjoy the fun!

I'm glad you posted that. I was starting to wonder whether I'd hulled the seeds and forgotten doing it. (Evidently, whatever it is in pumpkin seeds that's good for you isn't a memory aid.) I think we just ate them whole after roasting. Ours are Jack O'Lantern pumpkin seeds, as there's never another reason in our household to mess with pumpkins.

Squash seeds, now, that sounds promising.

[hathor]

My husband's family is Turkish Sephardic, and these guys are the master pepita/pumkin shell roasters and eaters!!

There used to a raw nut supplier that would sell them 10 lb bags at a time...that is a lot of pumpkin seeds!

Roasting from the pumpkin: the colander method mentioned up above works about the best to get rid of all the stringy slime. Which is stringy, STINGY slime if a little one gets in their eye, so take care. I dry roast them. Coat liberally in salt and roast in a 325 oven until they are toasty/crispy. Silpat is excellent.

Eating method: I eat the whole damn thing shell and all. I like all the salt and crunch.

Husband's method: hold seed vertically between index and thumb, insert the little point between front teeth and gradually feed into the mouth while cracking along the seam of the shell. Hulled seed drops onto tongue. Now, my husband can do a 2 hand feed, and polish off at least 60 seeds a minute! Anybody want a Quicktime video of this???????

[bentherebfor]

All you out there who eat them with the shell on, (as stupid as this sounds) do you ever experience digestive....um....difficulties after an extended feast of seeds?

[fifi]

All you out there who eat them with the shell on, (as stupid as this sounds) do you ever experience digestive....um....difficulties after an extended feast of seeds?

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That is what I want to know. Now... How do the commercial guys that sell the hulled, green pepitas do that?

[Mabelline]

The only thing different from everything everyone else has said is that after cleaning all the strings, I soak them overnight in a very strong saltwater -to cover-in the fridge. In the morning, I sieve off the water, oil my baking sheet, spread them and add finely ground salt and bake at 350. My mom always did them like this, and so I still do it that way.

I would think the relative softness of the seeds would be dependent on when the water supply was cut off, when the stem was cut. And variety.

[andiesenji]

Speaking of squash, my gardener called me out to the garden shed so he could show me a few of the squash he cut last week and are now cured enough to bring in to store.

That big Turks turban is nearly a foot in diameter.

There are some big Hubbards as well as a couple of other varieties out in the garden but they aren't ready to cut yet. There is a tendril right at the stem end that has to dry up before they are "ripe".

They almost look artificial, don't they?

[bentherebfor]

andiesenji, do you plan to roast the seeds of those squash?

[gus_tatory]

Wait, you guys eat the hulls? I think of home roasted pumpkin seeds like sunflower seeds, you pick or bite the nut out the hull. I wouldn't think of using them as a salad or soup topper w/out shelling them first.

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hi Rachel--

yeah, maybe i'm getting too much fibre from the shells. dunno.

but if you use that two-step method i describe (above), i think you are adding some moisture at the beginning, which allows the shells to do that transparent, "puffy uppy" thing. (yeah, i know that's not a word.)

...and then the outside/shell becomes like little popovers or yorkshire puddings kind of, with melting, paper-thin skins, and amber, toasty seeds inside.

they have to be served fresh/hot and they can't be from old, huge, woody pumpkins.

other than that, i know it's an idiot-proof method, because i can do it.

i'd be interested to hear if people roast different kinds of squash seeds, like <shout out> Kristin: would kabocha squash seeds be good roasted?

regards,

gus

edit to add: andiesenji, what nice photos!

Edited October 15, 2004 by gus_tatory (log)

[andiesenji]

When I cut into the squash I will see how the seeds look. Sometimes they are just too woody to roast. Usually butternut squash have softer, smaller seeds that roast well.

The "sugar" pumpkins that are used for cooking also have softer seeds than the carving pumpkins.

If the Hubbards are small enough their seeds are fine for roasting. However if you get one of the big rock-hard ones, their seeds are usually tough and woody. I don't even try to cut those with a knife, they get sawn into pieces on the band saw. (It is used just for food and cleaned carefully after sawing bones or frozen meat.)

Part of my left great toe is permanently numb from the time when I was trying to split a huge blue Hubbard with an axe and it glanced off the squash and into my boot, cut right through the steel toe cap and into my toe.

There is one great big banana squash that is laying next to the fence, Jose couldn't see it from the garden side but I saw it when I was doing my morning exercise walk around the kitchen garden. I tried to get a picture of it but there is too much foliage to make out anything clearly. The vine is growing out of one of the compost bins, the same place the giant tomatillos were growing earlier this summer and which I posted photos of in another topic. There are a lot out there now but I can't get at them.

Jose cut quite a few squash off the vines early this morning but he won't be here again until Monday so I won't know what exactly I have until he brings them in. I think I bought two of every variety they had at Lowe's, Home Depot and Green Thumb nursery. Some were new hybrids I have never grown before. It will be interesting to see how well they did.

[Redsugar]

Pepitas are the oblong, olive-colored pumpkin seeds commonly used in Mexican cuisine – for example, in Salsa de Pepitas, in which the seeds are sautéed in oil with garlic, onions, and breadcrumbs, then chiles are added before finishing with chicken broth and a light-cream binding. Pepitas are the variety sold in natural-food markets. When pan-roasted with a sugar coating, they acquire an addictive flavour, ideal for out-of-hand snacking or adding to cake glazes & cookies. Nutritionally speaking, pumpkin seeds are scored high in protein, magnesium, and phosphorus, as well as a couple of amino acids.

An optimal method for toasting them: Wash fresh pumpkin seeds in a bowl, using warm (not hot, you shouldn’t soften them) water to rinse away the fibers. Drain & blot dry. Coat the seeds with clarified butter or olive oil and spread them out on a sheet pan. Give the seeds a fairly generous sprinkling with salt. Place the sheet in a slow oven -- 250° for about 25-30 minutes, i.e., until they are golden in color.

Oh andiesenji, I noticed the Sweet Dumpling squash in your photos; I’ve eaten several of those little squash over the past couple of weeks – they have a lovely texture & flavor!

[andiesenji]

More squash wheelbarrowed to the shed today. I was going to try to get a photo of the jumbo banana squash but Jose cut it into manageable pieces before I remembered to tell him to let me get a picture of it first. I am giving a lot of it away. It was nearly 4 feet long and about 10 - 12 inches in diameter. Very thick flesh. I have some steaming now, and it is going into the freezer.

Tomorrow and Saturday is "open gate" in the big garden. I invite all the neighbors to come and help themselves since the ones who help me with it already have picked all they want and there is still a lot of stuff out there. There are a lot of small pumpkins for the kids. After they finish gathering what they want, we have a little impromptu get-together. Although it is beginning to get quite chilly at night, the days are still fairly warm.

Earlier today it was T-shirt warm outside, now the wind has come up (as usual at this time of the day) and it is downright cold. I haven't been paying attention to the news today so I don't know the forecast. Hope we don't get a freeze.

[Chris Amirault]

I just made a ton of these from three mountainous pumpkins using a combination of methods described here, and the results are perfect. I used a combination of the instructions from above, which I present here in gratitude:

(1) Cleaning: washed them in four or five changes of water, then drained in a colander with a spray.

(2) Brining: soaked them in a very salty solution overnight, which puffed them up quite a bit.

(3) Drying with paper towels -- but that wasn't good enough, so...

(4) Pan-drying: On medium high heat in small batches, I tossed them around in a pan with nothing in it (save the seeds) to get them really dry; it took about ten minutes for each little batch. They got a little browned, too.

(5) Salting, spicing, and oiling: I made two different batches, both with a nice coating of EVOO and salt, and one with a spice mix (cayenne, black pepper, chipotle, cumin, dehydrated onion and garlic from Penzey's).

(6) Baking: spread them out on cookie sheets in one layer at 375 for about 15-20 minutes until nicely browned. You need to watch them and move the little solitary seeds on the edges into the center and vice versa, or else they don't cook evenly.

They're crunchy and tender, very much like the texture of a kettle chip (it's a great method for those of you worried about those toothy hulls).

Thanks, everyone, for the ideas!

[Jason Perlow]

So after carving out our Jack O' Lantern, we now have a windfall of pumpkin seeds. I know these are somehow eaten as a snack, but I am unsure of the preparation.

Anyone got any good uses for these? Besides this?

http://www.fabulousfoods.com/recipes/appet.../pumpseeds.html

[ronnie_suburban]

There's a great recipe in the Martha Stewart Hors d'Oeuvres Handbook for a toasted pepita dip. Only issue is you'd need to shell them...and that may be a huge pain in the butt.

Anyway...sautee the raw, hulled seeds in olive oil with some garlic then coarse puree them with tomatoes, scallions, jalapenos, cumin seed lime juice and a few other items. Let cool, serve with pita or (pita) chips It's very delicious.

=R=

[Jason Perlow]

Actually, this evening, I washed off the gunk and drained the seeds, and tossed them in a mixture of olive oil, kosher salt, cajun spice mix, pepper, and a nice dose of smoked paprika. Baked them on a cookie sheet at 300 for about an hour, tossing them around every 20 minutes or so.

They taste great.

[NVNVGirl]

Oh geesh....Jason! I have so many recipes that include pumpkin seeds...I think I bought mine at Trader Joes *that i didn't prepare myself*...I've made dips and I recently made some pumpkin bread and some muffins with them...I know I've used them for other things too...I'll look up my recipes and post them....they really do make for a little differnent taste and texture than other nuts in things. I think my exclamative at the begining was because I'm shocked that YOU haven't been using them for years, LOL..you and Rachel are my mentors! Where is the best place to post the recipes....here or in the recipegullet? And believe me when I say...I am not a huge fan of pumpkin or the seeds, so if I post a recipe, its something that I REALLY enjoy! Seana

[chezcherie]

there is a delicious recipe in the new gourmet cookbook for a green bean salad with pumpkin seed dressing. of course i have just lent my copy to a friend for the weekend, so can't cite chaper and verse, but it is a dressing made by combining toasted, hulled pumpkin seeds, some garlic and cumin and some olive oil in a blender. (that's close, anyway.) the first time i made it, i ate several spoonfuls straight--not something i usually do with sauces or dressings!

[Al_Dente]

I rinsed them, let them dry on a towel, tossed with EVOO, plenty of salt, cumin seeds, paprika, and a little cayenne. Roasted them on a baking sheet at 400 for about 25 minutes and shook up the pan a couple of times.

I can't imagine going through the trouble to shell them. Oy...

[bentherebfor]

Roast them! Sure its not exactly original, but with some curry, they are amazing!

[pgtips]

As for the trader joes' pepitas, I bought some on impulse after an in-store demo in which they were served atop curried butternut squash soup w/ a dollop of mediterranian-style yogurt. A new tj staple for me.

[LuckyGirl]

I have about a bushel of pumpkins to roast over the next week. I have been cleaning the seeds that I scrape out before roasting the pumpkin as I would like to roast the seeds later. It is a real PITA to clean the sting and flesh from the seeds. Any suggestions for making it easier?

I have read about splitting the pumpkins and leaving the seeds it while roasting. Does anyone have any experience with that? I'm thinking the string and flesh would peel away from the seeds easier.

I have so much pumpkin to process that I will try the above with the next batch but I'm wondering if there are any other tricks.

[OliverB]

I throw them into lots of water and swoosh that around, then put them in a strainer with large holes, again swooshing and shaking. I find it all comes of relatively easy that way. Then scoop them out by the handful and remove remaining bits and pieces.

I never tried to roast them with the pumpkin, if it's cut side down it might work, just try. Cut side up I'd expect everything to bake onto the seeds permanently.

I always roast the seeds from the pumpkin we carve, but I always end up throwing most of them out later on, the initial "uhhmmm, good!" turns into indifference quickly at my house. You might not need to roast all the seeds you get?

Just an idea, if you have a big pasta pot with that strainer insert, you could probably throw the seeds in there and then hose them down with a garden hose outside? That should do it.

Also throw them into water right away, the sticky stuff dries on to them quickly. I have a pot next to my carving station (outdoors somewhere) with water.

[Chris Amirault]

I wash them and then don't worry too much. I just roasted a pan of them, and the gunk on the gunky ones crisped up and came off of most of them.