This isn’t a recipe, as much as a general idea of how to cook something.

A couple of weeks ago we made a tasty Arizona Pumpkin Soup that said it would do well with some toasted pumpkin seeds. We bought a bag (a few cups worth) of raw pumpkin seeds thinking, how hard can it be? Well, not very, though there are a few gotchas.

The three types we made were:

* Olive oil and salt
* Cinnamon and brown sugar

* Spicy!

We used a recipe from Pumpkin Patches and More as to give an idea what temperatures to roast at and whatnot.

This is pretty loose, since it’s not a cookbook recipe, and I didn’t take very good notes (sadness!). But, nevertheless, you’ll get something to work from!

Preheat your oven. I set our toaster oven to 350 F on convection. Cooler would probably be fine, but will take longer. The linked article suggests 275 F.

I started by covering our toaster oven’s baking pan (it came with it) in a layer of pumpkin seeds. This probably is a good cup in ours, but yours will probably differ. Sploosh some of your fat (olive oil, vegetable oil, and/or butter) on them, and mix up until everything looks coated. I’d guess that this is 2-4 T of whatever you’re using. Then, coat with whatever seasoning you are using. This is a heavier coating than a sprinkle. Maybe a tablespoon? Toss the seeds in the seasoning until it looks distributed well. Then, in the oven!

I checked on the seeds every 5 minutes and stirred until they looked good. Look for browning, but not burning. Our seeds spent 20-30 minutes in the oven, not including the time I was stirring (set timer for 5 minutes, take them out and stir when it beeps, start again when they’re back in). If you hear a couple of pops, that probably means they’re getting done.

That’s it! It’s an easy recipe. To get you started, here’s what we used:

• Olive oil and salt. Simple, but tasty! You want to use good olive oil for this, since it’s the primary flavor.
• Cinnamon and brown sugar. I used a combination of melted butter and vegetable oil for this. You’ll have to be careful to keep the brown sugar from burning.
• Spicy! Vegetable oil and a touch of sesame oil as the fat; soy sauce, red chile powder, whatever other spicy stuff you have around.

I’ll close with a picture, and a promise to take notes next time 🙂