We had our annual “Trunk or Treat,” chili supper and pumpkin carving tonight at church. As usual, I mooched all the pumpkin seeds I could get from anyone who wasn’t planning on using them.

Each year, I go online looking for tips and recipes, and there are a wide variety – many of which are directly contradictory. I’ve found that low-and-slow cooking methods work better than high heat. I also have discovered that my personal taste is for seeds that are toasted but not too brown. The commercial pumpkin seeds I buy the rest of the year are cooked somehow but aren’t brown at all. And it’s very easy to burn the seeds once you get them to the brown stage.

Part of the problem is that some people (like me) eat the whole seed, hull and all, which is perfectly edible. Others hull them the way you would sunflower seeds. I think some of the high-temp, very-brown recipes are by and for people who eat only the kernels and don’t care if the hulls get overdone.

The past few years, I’ve soaked the seeds overnight in salt water, adding some liquid crab boil, hoping to get some flavor into the seeds. Sprinkled-on seasonings have a tendency to fall off. But I could never get the crab boil flavor to really take, and anyway I didn’t have any on hand tonight.

During tonight’s internet search, I found a comment suggesting that instead of just soaking the seeds in salt water, you actually boil them in salted water before toasting them. I had already put the seeds into soaking water but decided to try this and just dumped the whole mess into a stock pot. I don’t think I boiled the seeds long enough – I tasted one or two of the raw seeds, and they didn’t take on any noticeable amount of salt. But I think boiling the seeds may have been a good idea anyway from a cooking standpoint.

After boiling, I let the seeds dry partially (using my dehydrator to speed up the process). I coated them with canola oil and then tossed them with Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning. Jay Davis had suggested cajun seasoning tonight at church, and as I said I hadn’t been able to soak any flavor into them. I put the seeds in the oven at a low temperature. I think it was about 250 degrees, but the numbers have been scrubbed off the controls to my oven. (Don’t ask.) I had two full pans of the seeds; I stirred each pan and rotated them top-to-bottom every 15 minutes or so for about an hour.

They came out of the oven a few minutes ago; I’ve dumped them into a plastic container, and they’re still warm. They are just toasted enough. I think the boiling actually helped this process.

UPDATE: Here is the re-uploaded Trunk or Treat video:

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.

We had our annual “Trunk or Treat,” chili supper and pumpkin-carving tonight at church. As I have the past few years, I came prepared to take pumpkin seeds from those who didn’t want them.

I like pumpkin seeds. I eat the store-bought ones year-round, but of course it’s fun to try to make your own, and season them.

There are a variety of contradictory recipes online. One thing I have picked up that seems to work well is soaking the seeds overnight with salt water, to infuse some salt into them. Dry seasonings sprinkled on the seeds are fine, but don’t stick very well, and this way at least you know each seed will be properly salted. Plus, there are some people who only eat the kernel, not the hull, and soaking is the only way to get any salt onto the kernel.

You do, however, have to let the seeds dry after soaking; I speed up that process using my dehydrator.

For the rest of the recipe, this year I’m going to use the instructions from a relish magazine handout which was given to kids at Eakin Elementary School during Chef Jon Ashton‘s visit last week, in connection with the T-G / relish Cooking Show and Expo that night.

The handout suggests the proper spices but doesn’t specify amounts, so I’ll have to play it by ear. It calls for coating the seeds with oil (I will use cooking spray), sprinkling on the seasonings and then baking for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.