Test Kitchen: Pumpkin Seeds

Recipe: Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Source: Allrecipes.com

Halloween is my favorite holiday, but I don't always have the time or money to get as involved with it as I'd like. This year, I was fortunate to be able to pull a costume together, attend a party, hand out candy to trick-or-treaters, watch some scary movies, and naturally, carve a jack o' lantern. My top priority probably should have been meticulously slicing clean lines into my pumpkin. My actual top priority was making sure I snagged every single seed so that I could roast it later.

There are various opinions out there as to how long the seeds should dry out before they're cooked. For mine, it took at least a couple of days before they seemed dry enough to proceed. I list allrecipes.com as my source, but that was really only for ideas about oven temperature and cooking times. I knew that I'd be coming up with my own seasoning blend, and it was vastly entertaining to consider various combinations. A bit of seasoned salt was always a given, but as to the rest, my ideas changed daily. The internet suggested coating the seeds in melted butter to make sure the spices stuck, but I opted for a thin coat of olive oil, instead.

My final decision was a combination of seasoned salt, curry, garlic powder, cumin, and a dash of cayenne; I wanted them to have a kick. So how did they turn out?

Well, they were beautiful. And I wish to hell that I could say that they were delicious, too. After all, they certainly took plenty of time and work. But they weren't delicious. They weren't bad either - they just didn't meet my high expectations. I'm not sure what I should vary to make them better. The length of time I let them sit before roasting? The spice blend? The cooking time? I'm not sure, and I won't be carving another pumpkin anytime soon to find out. Ah, well. There's always next Halloween.

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Test Kitchen: Butternut Squash

Recipe: Butternut Squash, Braised and Glazed
Source: How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (cookbook)

My boss is part of a CSA at the farmer's market near my apartment, and when she found herself overloaded with butternut squash, she gave me a few.

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is a good source for jumping off from one basic ingredient, and I found a promising experiment with this recipe. I already had all the other ingredients on hand to attempt the Asian-style variation they suggested, which employs soy sauce and ginger (I mean, I don't have any ginger root, but figured I could make do with ground). The cookbook reported that this recipe should take about half an hour, plenty of time to get done and settled before Parks & Rec.

What dirty, dirty liars they are. If these squash (and the garlic) had started off pre-peeled and pre-chopped, perhaps it would have taken those thirty minutes. Instead, it took that much time just to prep the ingredients.

Once everything was peeled and chopped, I started by heating olive oil, garlic, and the ginger in my Dutch oven. Any excuse to use my beloved Dutch oven is welcome. The recipe suggested 1 tablespoon of minced garlic, but given that I was working with three large squash - and tend to like things on the garlicky side anyway - I went ahead and used the whole head, totaling about 2.5 tablespoons. The ginger was an approximation, too; I put in about a teaspoon or so.

Then it's just a matter of adding the squash, seasoning with salt, pepper, and soy sauce, then cooking until the liquids have infused themselves into the vegetables. It was a lot of stirring and heat variations and so on, but overall, not a terribly labor-intensive process. The prep work was far more demanding than the cooking. Once the squash was almost done, I took the recipe's suggestion to garnish with sesame seeds, since I don't have occasion to use them that often.

All in all, it took about two hours to turn out what wound up being a serviceable side dish. It was a little too peppery, but that's my own fault. I ate the squash by itself that night, but it doesn't really work on its own. Over the weekend, I used it up for lunches, and greatly improved it by tossing some sauteed andouille on top.

This recipe was fun to experiment with, and it was a good way to use up the ingredients I had on hand, but given what I got out of the time I had to put into it, I doubt I'll make this one again.

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