Not a Hungarian tradition
Hey Barb,
We hosted our Hungarian "family", Andras and his wife and two boys yesterday. Steve had the brilliant idea to have them carve pumpkins - as that is a very traditional American experience that is not practiced around the world.
The boys grew tired of the project pretty quickly, but Andras and his wife, Eszter, enjoyed it and Eszter turned out to be something of a pro carver. We used some stencils from a booklet from Target, but let me say that you need a lot of skill to actually get the sort of results she did with these crazy little tools that come with the stencils.
While they were busy with the pumpkin carving I set to work on the seeds. Andras was stunned that I would pick through all the pumpkin guts to get the seeds, but I enjoy mindless (maybe meditative is a better word) tasks.
Anyway, I ended up with about 5 cups of seeds and decided to try something new. I did a little browsing on the Internet and here is my recipe for Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Seeds.
---Colleen
Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Seeds
4-5 cups pumpkin seeds, rinsed
salt
¼ cup butter
2-3 Tablespoons brown sugar
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
After you have rinsed all the pumpkin fibers off the seeds, boil them in salted water for about 10 minutes. Use about 2 Tablespoons of salt (although you can adjust downward if you are avoiding salt.)
Strain the seeds and allow to dry on paper towels. Then melt butter and add sugar and cinnamon to the butter. Pour over seeds in a bowl and stir. Spread seeds out on cookie sheets (I used three sheets for 5 cups of seeds) and bake for 10 minutes at 300 degrees. Remove and stir and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove and stir and sprinkle with a bit more brown sugar. Bake for 10 more minutes. Taste the seeds and bake again if needed. It should take 30-40 minutes total. Let cool and enjoy.
---Colleen