Slow Baked Pumpkin + Seeds
With only a few ingredients and slow cooking in mind. These recipes are interchangeable to enjoy with a variety of seasonal squash. Bringing sun and heat to you on cooler fall and winter days, through the savory fruit of the squash plant and baking. See recipes and ideas for pumpkin/squash and seeds below…
As I wrote the first sentence of this blog, I had a flash back to me as a kid, under the age of eight, playing with my Easy Bake Oven. Do you remember those? They were pretty much tiny microwave ovens. They came with, and you could buy, different premixed desserts to ‘bake’ in them. Tearing open a tiny packet of mysterious ingredients. Then, pouring those ingredients into the small mixing bowl that came with the Easy Bake Oven. Next, mixing in water and scraping the batter into to a teeny tiny mold. Slowly, scooting it into the ‘oven’. With what I recall as a hollow spatula and tongs mixed together. To finally, ‘bake’ for a few minutes. And, VOILA! A tasty little sweet treat. It was incredibly simple, and brought me so much joy, and probably a little sugar high too. I think this is where my love for baking truly began and evolved. I still feel that childlike joy today when I bake!
Spoon fresh pumpkin into a variety of dishes, for a slightly savory taste and soft texture. Bake into sweet wholesome breads and cookies. Spice up breakfast, and mix into oatmeal and pancakes. Enjoy the seeds by the handful. And, as a salty and crunchy garnish or ingredient in curry, rice bowls, salad and soup.
In Ayurveda, pumpkin is mostly made up of the Earth element and supports grounding. For fall, a light and ethereal, predominantly vata season and time of year. Lastly, this iconic fruit, agriculturally speaking, is divine for adding a naturally earthy fall canvas of orange-yellow to a rainbow of dishes.
Recipe
Each pumpkin and squash are unique; approximately makes,
3 C Pumpkin puree + 1/3 C seeds
Slow Baked Pumpkin + Seeds
1 small baking pumpkin (see photo), or another squash variety, either around 2.25 lbs.
EVOO/Sesame/Sunflower oil
Salt
Directions
Heat oven to 350.
Rinse pumpkin/squash. Then, place the pumpkin into a baking pan and in the oven (yup, even with the stem). Bake until soft, 60-90 minutes. Same goes for larger squash, like butternut and spaghetti, and can take up to two hours. Acorn, and others similar in size will take 15-45 minutes less baking time.
Here, you can slice the pumpkin/squash in half, remove and set aside the seeds and stringy bits. Return pumpkin to baking pan and oven to continue baking for 30 minutes. For smaller squash, continue baking at 15 minute intervals until soft.
Add seeds to baking sheet and toss with oil and salt. Optional: before last step, rinse seeds and stringy bits off first, and pat dry. Bake for 15 minutes. Taste, if soft and slightly crunchy, continue baking for 5 minute intervals until optimal crunchiness is achieved. *For non-stick baking sheets or peace of mind add a parchment paper lining that’s oven safe.
Once pumpkin/squash is cooked and warm to the touch, spoon out flesh into a container to finish cooling completely. Then, store, refrigerate and enjoy within seven days. I enjoy and incorporate the pumpkin in its cooked form as the ‘pureed pumpkin’ for other recipes.
For more delicious elixir recipes or ingredients search above; please leave kind comments below.
