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.

Stuffed Pumpkin

Stuffed Pumpkin

1 pie/sugar pumpkin

3 links mild/sweet Italian sausage

2 Granny Smith apples, cut into chunks

1 cup walnuts, crushed/chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 Tbls coconut oil

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

Adjust your oven racks so that you have enough room to fit the pumpkin you bought into the oven. Preheat oven to 350F.

Prep your pumpkin like you would if you were carving it. Start by thoroughly washing the outside of the pumpkin. Next, cut the top to make a lid. Then scrape the insides of the pumpkin to remove the seeds and the stringy bits. Save the seeds... I'll explain why. Once the inside is sufficiently clean, set the pumpkin aside.

Pumpkin Seeds: Switch over to your seeds. Rinse them to remove the pumpkiny bits, and spread over a paper towel to dry them a little bit. Transfer to a bowl and sprinkle with salt and pepper, or any other combination of spices, i.e. cinnamon and cayenne pepper. Stir up the seeds and spices and then spread over a tin foil-lined baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 350F. At this point the seeds will be nice and crunchy.

Chop up your onion. Heat coconut oil over medium heat in a pan on the stove. Once hot, add your onion and cook until translucent. While the onion is cooking, chop up your apple and walnuts. Alternatively, you can just put the walnuts in a sealed Ziploc bag and crush the nuts by pounding with your fist - this is what I did. After the onion has cooked down, add the apple and walnuts. Take your Italian sausage and remove from the casing (you can also buy bulk sausage from most grocers and save this step and some change). Break down the sausage so you don't have giant chunks.  Transfer to the pan with the onions, apples, and walnuts. Add 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Brown the meat.

While this is cooking, grab your pumpkin and place onto the foil-lined pan you used for baking the pumpkin seeds. When the sausage is done cooking, transfer your sausage mixture to your pumpkin. Pour in 1 cup of chicken broth (you can use water if you'd like, just add a bit more salt to the mixture).

Replace the lid of the pumpkin and slide into the oven.

Bake the pumpkin for 1 to 1.5 hours. Check after 1 hour. Your pumpkin is ready when you can easily pull the flesh off of the underside of the lid by scraping with a fork.
And here's your final product. When you serve, just scoop out some of the pumpkin flesh with your spoon/serving utensil.