pumpkin season

autumn has arrived which means that winter squash vegetables are now in season. generally i post about foods i've eaten or made, but this time this post is about something i've carved. my housemate and i decided to carve our own jack 'o lanterns, something we've actually never done before. so it was a first for the both of us.

this site, zombie pumpkins, has a pdf instructions on how to carve your pumpkin. i was amazed at some of the patterns people have carved. i was going to do something simple and easy, but then i had an epiphany! what if i carve the philadelphia eagles' logo? could i do it? it was tough to find a pattern, but i found a photo of a pumpkin that someone had done, and i decided to use that photo as a guideline.

i first drew the design onto my pumpkin. then i slowly started carving it out piece by piece starting from the middle and working my way out. overall, i think it turned out pretty neat! my housemate created a very happy jack 'o lantern. so now we have our two pumpkins sitting outside in the garden.

as i research pumpkin patterns, i also looked into what you can do with fresh pumpkin. unfortunately, pumpkins used for carving are not the right type of cooking pumpkins. however, i did find some recipes on roasting pumpkin seeds. so i first cleaned, rinsed and dried the pumpkin seeds. then i turned on the oven to 350 degrees (180 C/gas mark 4). i found a recipe on allrecipes.com for spiced maple pumpkin seeds. i altered it by using olive oil instead of butter to make it healthier. with the pumpkin seeds from my housemate's pumkin, i made a savory batch of seeds tossed in olive oil and salt sprinkled with paprika. i roasted them for about 40 minutes.

next time i might add some brown sugar to the sweet batch and maybe a dash of salt to make it sweet and savory. i preferred the savory batch better.

but definitely a nice little snack to enjoy!