How to Remove & Clean Pumpkin Seeds

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Jenny with Simply Beautiful Crafts on behalf of Expert Village, and today we're going to do one my favorite things about Halloween. We're going to roast pumpkin seeds. Yum-yum. Now, we've come to the ooey-gooey part of roasting pumpkin seeds; getting them out of the pumpkin. If you're going to go right from the pumpkin to the oven, now would be a good time to preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Well of course, the first step is to get the pumpkin open. You need your heavy duty knife for that, and do this very carefully. I like to put it down in the sink so that it's a little bit lower. Cut around your top and remove the lid. Usually there are seeds clinging to the lid caught in the fibers. You just want to pull those off and put them your bowl of water that's in your sink. Then you're either going to reach in with your hands and pull the seeds out or you're going to use a good stainless steel spoon and scrape them out. Depending on whether or not you mind ooey-gooeyness, you can use the spoon or your fingers. I find that my fingers actually work pretty well because they get down in there and kind of go through the fibers and get those seeds. You want to get as many of those seeds out as you can pulling them through the fibers either with your spoon or your fingers until you've really cleaned out your pumpkin. You really don't want to have any seeds left because of course, you want to roast every single one of these toasty, tasty treats. Once you've cleaned out your pumpkin thoroughly and there are no seeds left and you have them in the bowl of water, now's the time to get rid of the rest of those strings. Sometimes you can pull up a clump of strings and bring them right out, and sometimes they're still attached to the pumpkin and you need to separate them. Once you have all your extra strings out, you just put your hand in the water and rub the seeds with both hands. You're pretty much going to get all the rest of the strings away from the seeds. They don't really matter it's just good pumpkin, but they look better when you roast them without strings hanging to them. The last step in preparing your seeds for roasting is to put them in a colander and rinse any of those remaining strings off of the seeds. Sometimes warm water seems to help. Squish it around. Usually by this time, all the rest of the remaining string will separate from the seeds and you will very easily be able to put them out and lay them on a towel. Now, I have nice clean seeds that are ready for roasting. I can always pull those last few bit of strings off before I go to the next step. That's how to get your seeds."