Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

It's pumpkin season!!!  While technically you can make pumpkin dishes anytime of year, the fall is the perfect time for them!  I have a few favorites I'll be sharing with you over the next several weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.  I'd love to hear your favorites too...share with me in the comments!

We went to a pumpkin carving event at a local park yesterday.  They already have the pumpkins cleaned out and ready for you to carve.  The idea is for people to come and carve a pumpkin, leave it there, then come back the next weekend where they set them up in the park and have them lit!  It really is a fun time. 

Well, we had such a good time, we decided to come home and carve our own.  My daughter LOVED cleaning out the pumpkin and gave me the seeds to roast.  

So first fun treat....roasted pumpkin seeds. 

I started by putting the seeds in a colander and thoroughly rinsing them.  Use your hands to separate them while the water is running over them.  This helps loosen up any pumpkin guts still attached.  Then I spread them out on a baking sheet and let them dry out overnight. 

We decided to make ours sweet.  Here is the recipe we used...

1.5 cups fresh pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Toss seeds in a bowl with olive oil, brown sugar, cinnamon and a pinch or 2 of salt.  Spread out evenly onto a greased baking sheet. 

Bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring seeds halfway. 

Let seeds cool and then store in an airtight container.  Enjoy!

Now you have a cute, carved pumpkin and a yummy treat!

{fall} is here!

I know, I know...it's been here for a few weeks now, but it took me a little while to get decorated.   It is fun going through my decor, finding places to put everything in the new house.  One of my favorite places to decorate is our living room fireplace.  I just love our new white fireplace!  Things just seem to pop on it!  I also love the turquoise from my day to day decor mixed in with the orange! 

I also love this new ladder shelf we added in the living room.  It has lots of space to add cute bits of goodness! 

Little Bit and I made this fingerprint tree last year and I was glad to have a new place to display it! 

What are your favorite places to decorate for fall or just decorating in general?

Linking up with:

LEAVES!

This time of year is a great time to talk about leaves. The colors are so beautiful and the weather is wonderful. We have been out playing in leaf piles several times in the past few weeks. Here are a few books we have enjoyed reading about leaves...

Fall is not easy by Marty Kelley {this story is soooo super cute!}

We're going on a leaf hunt by Steve Metzger

The little yellow leaf by Carin Berger

There was an old lady who swallowed some leaves by Lucille Colandro {We always love a good take on the old lady swallowing something books!}

While playing in the leaves Little Bit had fun collecting some. She found several different types in lots of fun colors...



We took some of them and did leaf rubbings...

What fun with leaves have you been having?!