Start eating pumpkin seeds

​If you’re going to be scooping out pumpkins in the next few weeks, it’s time you were rewarded for using a safety knife when you accidentally give your jack-o’-lantern a unibrow.

And while it’s fine to roast pumpkin seeds with a bit of salt, you don’t just have to stop there. Chow has a list of 10 ways to spice them up. Take a look at the jerk pumpkin and the wasabi and coriander seeds — both sound like the kind of snack mix that’s different in a good way.

If you need a primer on how to clean and roast the seeds, here’s a good place to start. Roasting pumpkin seeds can take fewer than 30 minutes, once you’ve scooped them out of the pumpkin. You can also soak them overnight in salt water, similar to how you would brine eggplant. The salt helps bring out the flavor.  

Here’s another recipe that sounds an awful lot like Chex Mix, only made with pumpkin seeds. Sometimes it can be as simple as adding fresh cracked pepper to give the seeds some balance. And if you’d rather have something sweet than savory, caramelized pumpkin seeds might just do the trick (or is it treat?).

While most sites would say seeds keep for a week in a sealed container inside the fridge, they’re potentially good for longer if they stay dry and the container isn’t opened.   

[Image via Flickr: wjbutt]