Toasted Pumpkin/Squash Seeds

You know what sucks? Migraines. Do you know what sucks more than migraines? Crying in front of your supervisors while you have a migraine. Yeah. That happened to me. I had a headache all morning, but then again, I have a headache most mornings, so it's nothing new. Anyways, I fought off succumbing to the headache for a couple hours before I finally took my migraine meds. 45 minutes later, the headache was significantly worse and every little sound was pounding in my head. The thing that finally set me off was a phone ringing. That was it. My final straw. I walked over to tell my supervisors that I had to go home (with tears in my eyes), and that's when they started freaking out, because in the words of my supervisor "You look terrible. You can't drive yourself." So one of my other co-workers drove me home, where I promptly crawled into bed and fell asleep. Let me just say that I have a renewed love of black-out curtains. Only black-out curtains were able to stop me from dragging myself under a pile of blankets... probably in my closet. Otherwise, being in my room with regular curtains in the middle of the day/morning would have been torture.

Today was the worst migraine that I've head in over a year. Since starting Paleo, most of my headaches haven't been too terrible. Yes, I still have headaches pretty often, but I can usually ignore them because they're not as intense as they used to be, and don't usually take any medicine for them. Unfortunately, I think that the lack of sleep this past week is what did me in. I've had such difficulties waking up this past week because I've been so tired and today's migraine is yet another sign that I need to pay better attention to my body. Obviously my goal of getting enough sleep (the 21-day challenge from Mark's Daily Apple that I mentioned) is not working out so well. Clearly, I still need some work. Health is a work in progress.

Anyways, enough of me, my migraines, and my need for sleep. Here's another pumpkin-related recipe.

Hot Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Seeds from one pumpkin

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

pinch of cayenne pepper

1. Preheat oven to 275 F.

2. Thoroughly clean the seeds after scooping them out of the pumpkin. I pull the pumpkin bits out by hand and then rinse the seeds in a colander.

3. Dry the seeds with a paper towel. It doesn't have to be completely dry.

4. Place the seeds in a bowl and add the salt and pepper. Stir to coat evenly.

5. Spread on a baking sheet and place in the oven. Cook for 25-30 minutes. The seeds are done with they're nice and crunchy if you bite into one.

Sweet Toasted Acorn Squash Seeds

Seeds from one acorn squash

1 tsp coconut oil, melted

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp nutmeg

pinch of allspice

1. Preheat oven to 275 F.

2. Thoroughly clean the seeds after scooping them out of the squash. I found the seeds to be more thoroughly attached to the acorn squash flesh, so it took some extra time to separate the seeds from the stringy bits.

3. Dry the seeds with a paper towel.

4. Place the seeds in a bowl and add the coconut oil. Stir to coat.

5. mix in the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice.

5. Spread on a baking sheet and slide it into the oven. Cook for roughly 25 minutes. The acorn squash seeds are smaller and I found they didn't need to bake as long to dry them out.