In the Kitchen - Eat the Seeds too!

I have never thought I was a fan of squash.  Really...   the only squash I ever ate was a baked acorn squash but it had to be FILLED with butter and brown sugar for me to eat it. 

Now Fareway had squash on sale for 48 cents a pound last week so I bought a butternut squash to try.  Yesterday I cooked the butternut squash into the most delicious mashed squash dish.  It was like mashed potatoes but uber-healthy...a yellow vegetable that I could almost feel my body thank me for giving it.  It had some butter, some sour cream, real maple syrup, and squash.  I still have some left in the refrigerator for today's meal!  I made Journey eat a serving and I can tell she is a modern child of this century because once she knew it was a vegetable, her immediate response was "I don't like it".  Are you kidding me?  It was FANTASTIC!  I still made her eat a serving, which she did.. she is such a good kid!

Anyway, about the seeds.  Since I plan to have a HUGE garden next year in my little back yard behind the orchard (Mike is hoping to be able to retire from his grass-mowing services soon), I have started saving seeds from things I want to grow.  So I carefully removed the seeds from the butternut squash and dried them a little on a paper towel.  I have a couple dozen of them drying now in the window sill for replanting next spring but I still had some left.

So I roasted them!  Because I wanted to roast them in a low temp oven to preserve the nutrition and natural oils in them, it took several hours in 150 degrees last night.  I first coated them with a little olive oil and salt and when they were roasted crunchy before bed last night, we tasted them and they are delicious!!  A new snack!  Or a new nut!  (so far a much better experiment than the acorns).  Here is my creation:

Now that they are dry I could keep them in one of my little glass canisters on the counter or in a ziplock but I bet they won't last too long!   So the rest of this winter,  I will be roasting all seeds from pumpkins, squash, well just about everything edible.  ;)