Its the great pumpkin seed Charlie Brown!

Last year Halloween left me disappointed. Real disappointed. There were no pumpkins to be carved, and no halloween parties to attend, and therefore no costume to wear. I love Halloween and knew this year must be different. I decided that there WILL be pumpkins carved, there will be costumes worn, and there will be halloween goodies baked.

I almost made good on all my demands. Steve and I had really good intentions of carving pumpkins one Sunday night. We had some yummy soup for dinner, and a scary movie in the queue, but once we had finished hollowing and cleaning out our pumpkins, we were both feeling very uninspired as to what to carve into them (maybe we should have had more wine). So we decided to skip on ahead to the pumpkin seed-making and the scary movie, and save the actual carving for the next night.

Well needless to say our poor faceless pumpkins are still sitting out on the deck, waiting to shrivel and rot. It's sad really.

Its a good thing I have oodles of roasted pumpkin seeds to help with the grief, I managed to wear not one but two costumes this year, and I watched my favorite Halloween movie 'It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!'. So all in all, I will consider this year a winner.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

This isn't really so much a recipe as it is a set of guidelines. Every pumpkin is a different size and yields a different amount of seeds. Use your best judgement on how much of each spice to use, and keep an eye on them in the oven so they don't burn. Pumpkins seeds are pretty much a blank canvass on which to sprinkle anything you like. Here is what I used:

Seeds from two medium sized pumpkins, washed, drained, and patted dry

2-3 tablespoons olive oil (enough to coat the seeds)

a few generous sprinkles of the following:

-chili powder

-onion powder

-garlic powder

-cayenne pepper

-salt

-freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and toss to coat. Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet (as always, I used my silicone liner, but parchment paper would be useful as well) and roast until golden brown, about 20-30 minutes. Be sure to stir the seeds a few times throughout the baking process.

I froze half of mine, so we will see how they fare. A girl can only eat so many pumpkin seeds in a week. Hope your Halloween was as fun as mine.