Roasted Pumpkin Seed Recipe

When Halloween rolls around, we all seem to have an abundance of pumpkins at our disposal. It is a great holiday tradition to decorate with pumpkins and/or to carve and light with candles on Halloween night. With the average pumpkin generally weighing in between 9-18 pounds, that leaves us with a large amount of pumpkin inards and seeds on our hands that most of us just discard. We use the shell for pumpkin pies, but what could we do with the pumpkin seeds? Well, don't toss out all of those seeds until you finish reading this column. Pumpkin seeds have a lot of health benefits, and you can make them yummy by following the Simple Roasted Pumpkin Seed Recipe at the bottom of this page.

The pumpkin seeds, also known as pepitas, make a wonderful, hearty roasted snack when baked. I didn't believe it until I tried some from a friend, but when I did, I loved them. And it has now become a holiday tradition at our house. It's very simple. Please view the easy to do recipe at bottom of this page.

Eating pumpkin seeds has many great health benefits also. They are known to be a good source of protein, zinc, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and phytosterols, and also phytosterols . Another great benefit is that they are said to help in lowering cholesterol. In the wikipedia encyclopedia I discovered that one gram of pumpkin seed protein is believed to contain about as much tryptophan as a full glass of milk does. This is amazing to me. And hope you find this a very helpful addition to your diet also. Who knew pumpkins had all these great benefits other than for decorations?

Simple Roasted Pumpkin Seed Recipe:

-All you do is scoop out the seeds of an average pumpkin, (which most do anyways when carving the pumpkin). Place them in a medium sized bowl.

-Wash them off in the bowl under cool water. Pour out the water and drain.

-Add a teaspoon of melted butter to the seeds and stir until seeds are well coated. (This is optional)

-Place them on a backing sheet and sprinkle with a dash of salt (to your own taste, which is also optional)

-Bake in the oven at 350* for about 45 minutes. More or less per your own desire. Everyones tastes are different. So have fun and experiment with different techniques.

Best when enjoyed while still warm fresh from the oven.

Note: 1 1/2 cups will yeild approximately 6 small servings