Ohio has been growing pumpkins for 1000s of years. Why? Well, these particular big gourds have extra thick walls of nutritious pulp. Today we use this for pumpkin pies, and agronomists have even developed special pumpkins with even thicker walls.
The pilgrims found that if they hollowed out all of the seeds and stringy innards of the pumpkin, added a little milk, honey and whatever spices they might have had into the empty cavity. To that scrapping's from the inside were all mixed together into a soupy mix. Then the pumpkin lid was placed back on top, and the entire pumpkin was placed into the glowing embers of the fireplace and allowed to cook. Voila: pumpkin pie in the shell.
Of course today we don't need to do that. We have Libby that provides us all the pumpkin pie mix we can possibly use, unless, Mother Nature wrecks havoc with their giant pumpkin patches in Illinois where all the pumpkin pie fillings are canned.
The other great thing about pumpkins is their giant seeds. Not only can these be planted the following spring for new plants, but once dried, they will last for years as an easily transported nutritious snack.
We've taken this a few steps more and made it not only a nutritious snack, but a tasty one as well.
After removing the seeds, do a little clean-up removing as much of the stringy pulp as you can. Thoroughly rinse the seeds. If you want to make extra salty seeds, mix 1/4 cup of salt with about 2 cups of water. Allow the salt to completely dissolve. Add the seeds and allow them to soak overnight. Remove from the brine and spread out on a paper-towel covered cooking sheet. Let them air dry for about 2 days.
Pre-heat the oven to about 250 degrees. Take the dried seeds and place in a bowl, adding either olive oil or melted butter to coat the seeds by tossing. Add to this additional salt, garlic or onion powder.
Evenly spread the seasoned seeds onto a foil covered cookie sheet. Place in the oven and bake for about 1 hour, tossing the seeds 3 - 4 times during that hour, or until golden brown.
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