A bad day for pumpkin seeds
Well, the folks from relish magazine were swell when they visited Shelbyville last week for our cooking show and expo, but I have a bone to pick with them tonight.
Using directions from the handout that Jon Ashton distributed last week at Eakin Elementary school, I tossed my pumpkin seeds with oil, sprinkled seasoning on them and toasted the first two trays at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.
What resulted was a black, burned mess.
I had hoped that it was actually the seasonings, and not the seeds, which were burnt, and so I’ve been stirring the seeds in a colander trying to knock loose some of the seasoning. It doesn’t seem to have helped much.
I pulled the third and final tray out of the oven much earlier than the directions; the seeds are about right but the seasonings are still burnt.
I just looked back at the recipe I’d used the past two years. It called for toasting in a 250-degree oven for an hour, and the results were just fine.
I am really disappointed. There are just enough random unburned (or lightly-burned) seeds that I would feel wasteful throwing the whole mess out. I’ll just have to try to pick the good seeds out. I definitely can’t take this charred, bitter mess to share with my co-workers (sorry, Mary Reeves).
I think the problem may be that, after soaking my seeds in salt water, I allowed them to dry. That was what last year’s recipe suggested. The relish recipe may have assumed wet, fresh-from-the-gourd seeds, which would no doubt have taken longer to toast.
Anyway, I’m disappointed. I had been looking foward to these.
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