Waste Not, Want Not

First, an update on the pumpkin post. I harvested four gorgeous pumpkins, left three to decorate the deck for now, and cut up the smallest one for culinary experimentation. I roasted the seeds to snack on and used some of the flesh for a spicy African pureed veggie and peanut butter soup. That recipe does a good job of hiding whatever veggies you use with its cumin, red pepper, ginger, and peanut flavors (delicious!) so it wasn't exactly a scientific test of the pumpkin's viability as food. But I baked the other half of the pumpkin and tried a spoonful plain. It was paler and waterier than butternut squash, with less flavor, but certainly not bad tasting, just bland. If you want to eat your Halloween pumpkins, I recommend using the flesh in a spicy or savory recipe. I scooped out the remainder of the baked flesh and put it in a non-stick frying pan with a little sesame oil and some soy sauce. I threw in some chard for color contrast, and the result was very tasty. I may have sprinkled a little bit of parmesan on top. Anyway, it was a satisfyingly successful experiment, especially considering that I didn't intend to grow pumpkins at all.

A week or so after the pumpkin taste-test, I bought a butternut squash to bake. As I was scooping out the seeds, it occurred to me that there is probably no reason to waste them. If pumpkin seeds make a good snack, why not squash seeds? This time, I sprinkled soy sauce on the seeds and put them in the toaster oven on a tray. Yum! The store-bought pumpkin seed snacks always have too much salt on them for my taste. These were much better, and they came "free" with the squash. Bonus!