November 3rd: Roasted-vegetable salad + Caramelized pumpkin seeds

Verdict:
Try Again: Roasted-vegetable salad & Caramelized pumpkin seeds

Tonight's supper recipe is a re-try from November 2009's Chatelaine: Roasted-vegetable salad. It's getting a re-try status again because I'm not feeling in top form tonight and didn't entirely enjoy supper. I think it was me though, not the recipe. G&O ate it up. We do make this one with a few modifications: using just carrots and not parsnips (I've tried and tried and can't bring myself to like parsnips), using spinach and not kale (a whole 142 g of spinach), and deleting the chickpeas or beans. We're not big fans of the legumes around here, although I do try to incorporate them into our diet occasionally. I do add goat cheese and toasted pine nuts to this salad, which is a guaranteed combo to make any meal better. Mm mm.

Did I mention this is our vegetarian meal of the week?

Late night snacktime. While scooping seeds from my pie pumpkin on the weekend, I couldn't help but notice how much smaller the seeds were than jack-o-lantern pumpkin seeds. I was curious: could I make tasty roasted pumpkin seeds? I've tried my hand at roasting seeds a few times, with a success rate of nil. Since I was making my pumpkin oatmeal from the Cooking with my Kid blog, I decided to try her Caramelized pumpkin seeds recipe too.

First of all, I think the term "caramelized" gets used too loosely on a regular basis. These seeds are in no way caramelized. They are toasted and then sugared. End of story. No long, slow cooking in sugar so that the sugar become syrupy and coats the seeds with an even, sticky layer of caramel. I come across this misnomer often in my constant seeking out of recipes.

But I digress. These pumpkin seeds are pretty good! Better than any I've made before. It's important to note that all the cooking comes in the first part of the recipe; once you add the sugar, the cooking is done. So you want to make sure your pumpkin seeds are perfect for eating before you move to the second step. I say all this because I think I should have cooked mine a smidgen longer, and I'm now wondering if half-cooked pumpkin seeds are difficult to digest. Time will tell.