Simply Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients:

1 Medium - Large Pumpkin

Salt to taste

Instructions:

- Pick out a pumpkin. Any pumpkin will do as long as it has no rotted spots on the outside. It is most fun to actually carve the pumpkin for Halloween. This way you get double use out of it. Cut open the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds. A large metal spoon makes this easy.

- Separate the seeds from the stringy parts of the pumpkin and rinse the seeds out in a colander

- In a large bowl toss your seeds and just enough olive oil to coat them along with salt. You want the seeds to be evenly coated with the olive oil

- Toss them onto a baking sheet into an oven set at 350 F

- About every 10 minutes mix around the seeds so they toast nice and evenly

- At about 30 minutes they should be nice and toasted. You can toast them for as long as you want. I usually leave them in the oven until they are nice and golden brown.

Chef Beth's Notes:

Pumpkin seeds are one of those things you can get creative with. Olive oil is a good base to toast them, but you can make them any flavor you desire. Try some pizza flavored pumpkin seeds by adding oregano and garlic. What about getting fancy? You can finish them with a little truffle oil and shaved parmiagano cheese. Don't limit yourself, experiment and make a bunch of small batches until you figure out what you like.