Better Late than Never - Sweet and Salty! Yum!

I am so behind in EVERY THING this holiday season. I'm barely getting around to roasting the pumpkin seeds that we saved the day we carved our Halloween Pumpkins. But I did want to share them because I'd never roasted them before and the are so delicious!

(By the way, I carved the normal looking one on the left. My daughter April carved the pumpkinavore that's eating the baby pumpkin)

I made one batch using a recipe that my daughter found at the Crepes of Wrath site. The recipe calls for EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil), brown sugar, cinnamon and kosher sale. They came out great but I still had a lot of pumpkin seeds left so I took the rest and just did all the same ingredients without the cinnamon. Those are the ones pictured in the mosaic. I love sweet and salty together. These were delicious!

I tried to get pics of the ones with cinnamon but the battery in my camera decided not to cooperate!

They were a bit of work because once you carve your pumpkins you have to rescue the wet, slippery seeds. And then you have to dry them. Mine dried for about a week on a cookie sheet and I kept turning them over and over so they dried evenly, then I placed them in a plastic bag and put them in the veggie crisper of my refrigerator.

It was fun to make them and I'm going to try again next year with different flavors. Sydney from Crepes of Wrath places them in little cellophane bags and gives them as gifts. I think that would be a great idea.

Here's the recipe I used:

Sweet n' Salty Pumpkin Seeds

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (about the amount I got from 2 sugar pumpkins, adjust as needed)
1 teaspoon olive oil (plus another teaspoon or so, if needed)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or fleur de sel (I just like the flakiness of fleur de sel)

1. You can buy pumpkin seeds at the store, or you can use the ones you get from your Halloween pumpkins! If you're using fresh ones from pumpkins, rinse them thoroughly in a colander and remove as much of the pumpkin flesh that you can (if you can't get every little piece, it's not a big deal - it's edible). Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper, and spread the seeds out on it. Let it sit out for at least 5-6 hours or, preferably, overnight. They should be bone dry, or nearly bone dry, when you bake them.

2. When the seeds are dry, mix them together with the olive oil (just enough to coat, I used about a teaspoon), 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt or fleur de sel (I highly recommend fleur de sel for its flakiness - you can obviously use more salt, if you like). Bake at 300 degrees F for 8 minutes or so, until the brown sugar is just beginning to set into the seeds. They won't change color that much (see above), so don't worry if they seem the same as when you put them in the oven. You can always pop them back in the oven if you need to, but once they're burned, there's nothing you can do! Just be mindful of how long they are in there.

3. Allow to cool completely (this should only take a few minutes) and enjoy! I wrapped mine up in cute cellophane baggies and tied them for a pretty holiday present! 

Linking up to Mosaic Monday with Mary at Little Red House.