"I tromped through the pumpkin patch"

The SO and I don't have any kids, that hasn't stopped us from getting into the spirit of Halloween by carving three jack-o-lanterns. Yes, three. As in, we have more jack-o-lanterns than people living in our home.

But we didn't set out to do that. It started innocently enough--I was at the produce stand and found a nice, big standard pumpkin, paid my $5 for it and brought it home to set outside until the SO said it was time to carve. In the meantime, I saw a website with all these really cool designs on it. That's when I saw a Jack Skellington pumpkin (from Nightmare Before Christmas, in case the name's not coming to you immediately). Ooh, I wanted a Jack jack-o-lantern! And that's when I remembered seeing several white pumpkins around. So we we back to the produce stand but did not find the right white pumpkin for the job. So we got this sort of peachy-colored pumpkin. The next day, we were visiting the SO's family and spotted a white pumpkin. So, suddenly, we had three pumpkins to carve. Uh-oh.

I was smart enough to get a pumpkin-carving kit that comes with all sorts of handy little tools. They helped out a lot. But these oddly-colored pumpkins (likely squashes or squash hybrids) were a total pain to gut. The peachy one might've been a hybrid with a spaghetti squash, because what came out of it looked like wet orange pasta. Yeah, it was really fun separating the seeds.

But we got them all gutted and carved and even got a big bounty of seeds. I've never toasted seeds before, but toasted some on the advice of a friend. I washed them and placed them on a greased cookie sheet (I used butter). I stuck them in the oven on the top rack at 375 degrees for just five minutes. Then I sprinkled them with salt and cinnamon and placed them back in the oven until I heard a couple of them pop (about 20 minutes or so). I didn't use a lot of cinnamon, so it's not overpowering--they're still sufficiently savory with just a little added punch. UPDATE: I tried a different recipe with seasoned salt instead, baked at 300 for 45 minutes and I'm a lot happier with the way those turned out. The ones baked at a higher temperature got a little too papery.

So that was a nice way to get a little something out of my decorations. I wish I could salvage the meat but I got a small eatin' pumpkin for that purpose.

Oh, and the other two pumpkins? The peachy one is The Pumpkin King and my orginal pumpkin is Oogie Boogie. We're very proud of our little pumpkins.