Toasted Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

Upside-down. Oops!!

I feel so silly. We carved our pumpkin over the weekend. After tracing and carving our design, my husband started laughing. I kept asking him what's so funny! He said, "you'll see..." I couldn't figure out what he was laughing at, until I realized our design was upside-down on the pumpkin! We had a good laugh about it, and finally figured out we could just display our pumpkin bottom-side up. It looks a little goofy, but at least we can use it on Halloween and the kids won't make fun of us.

That's better, flipped over. 

I have never really liked pumpkin seeds, but I saw this recipe from 101 cookbooks, and thought it looked good. You have my attention with sweet and spicy.

Crunchy, sweet, a little spicy, and way too easy to keep popping in my mouth! I'm really enjoying these seeds. Now I have to make myself stop munching before they're all gone!

Toasted Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

• 1 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1 egg white
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

First, I cleaned off the pumpkin seeds in a colander, rinsing all the orange slimy strings away. Then I boiled 2 cups of water with a teaspoon salt and 1 cup pumpkin seeds for 10 minutes. Drain and let dry (overnight).

Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together egg white, sugar, cayenne, and salt. Add pumpkin seeds and coat well. Strain excess egg in colander, then spread in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden. Sprinkle a little more cayenne and sugar, and let cool.