Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Did we tell you last year about Aimee’s breakthrough to her new love of Halloween? I don’t think we did. She’s always hated dressing up as an adult, and didn’t think it was a necessary or fun thing to do as an adult. Well, I couldn’t even tell you what happened last year, but she decided that we were all going to be swamp creatures, and she got REALLY into it. We all dressed alike at the beginning of the night, but by the end, Aimee had turned into a zombie swamp creature who scared everyone she met (literally- even we were scared of her).

Aimee’s new love stuck, and this year she decided we would all be crayons (mainly because her mom said she’d make Aimee’s crayon costume for her). We struggled to find the perfect time and place to wear these costumes together, and ended up having our own party in the end. Those kinds of things are always so much more fun than you think they’ll be. Sometimes we assume that you have to have lots of friends hanging out and have a real big party to properly appreciate a holiday like Halloween. But our party of six gave us a whole different kind of fun. We played Scrabble, chit-chatted about how jealous we (mostly Nick) were that Aimee’s costume was so well-made, and had dinner together. Mai-yan made Nick’s and her own costume, and her color was “Hot Mess Pink” if that tells you what it looked like. She transformed into a pirate by the end of the night.

The Menu:

• Exploded Brains Tacos
• Bloody Salad
• Eyeballs
• Guacamoldy
• Crusty Witch Nails
• Poison Apples
• Witch Fingers in Dirt

You’ll be getting the recipe for the Crusty Witch Nails (Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Seeds) today, which fortunately taste just as delicious after Halloween as during it. They’re made with our Secret Weapon Spice Rub. Hopefully you all got to go to the fancy pumpkin patch and get way too many pumpkins so you’ll have tons of seeds to roast.

We were all surprised this year by Kismat getting very into the dress up fun. Even though he won’t admit it, we know he planned his costume for at least three weeks, because he’d grown himself a nice mustache to go with it!

Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Yield

2 cups

Prep Time / Cook Time

5 minutes / 40 minutes

Activity Guide

Backpacking, Car Camping, Day Trip

Ingredients

• 2 cups pumpkin seeds, washed and dried*
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup Secret Weapon Spice Rub
• Pinch of smoked or regular salt

Tools

• Knife
• Large bowl
• Mixing spoon
• Baking Sheet

Method

*We scooped out the seeds from a few pumpkins, washed them and lay them out to dry on top of a dish drying towel overnight.

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Put washed seeds in the large bowl. Toss with olive oil and add Secret Weapon Spice Rub and salt. Toss once more and spread out evenly on the baking sheet.
3. Place in oven and stir after 20 minutes. Bake for about 20 minutes more or until golden brown. Store in airtight container or plastic zip-top bag.