Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

So we carved three pumpkins and we had SO MANY SEEDS. Apparently people toast or roast them, but I'd never done that (I know, sacrilege). I perused the internets and chose Martha Stewart's recipe for sweet and spicy pumpkin seeds.

First, I soaked my pumpkin seeds in water to remove as much of the stringy pulp as possible, then strained them in a colander for 30 minutes.

I removed the seeds and patted them dry with a paper towel. Or at least that's what I was supposed to do. They totally stuck to my paper towel, were slick and were just generally not going the way I thought they would. But you know me; I just pressed forward.

Once they were...drier...I spread them on parchment paper on a baking sheet. The oven was preheated to 275 degrees when I popped them in. I let them roast for one hour, stirring them around twice.

Meanwhile, I mixed up the spices: three tablespoons of sugar and 1/4 teaspoons each of cumin, cinnamon and ginger.

Once the seeds were roasted, I started melting four tablespoons of butter, instead of peanut oil as Martha suggested. WARNING: Here is where I think I could have let them roast longer!!

I dumped the seeds, plus two more tablespoons of sugar in the butter and stirred until it began to slightly caramelize.

And I dumped that whole mixture into the spices and stirred it up.

Ta-da! Spicy and sweet roasted pumpkin seeds.

But this story does not have a happy ending. First of all, they weren't fully crunchy because I didn't know quite what I was looking to achieve. Second of all, cumin overpowers everything it comes into contact with, so I would skip the cumin or use less of it. I had high hopes of sharing my pumpkin seeds at work, but two bites and we all kind of wrinkled our noses. I have plenty of seeds left, so I'm going to try it again, minus the cumin and plus more roasting time.