I hope you’re not sick of pumpkin recipes because WE STILL COMIN’ ATCHYA. This one is a quintessential Fall recipe because not only is it pumpkin, but it’s also chili. This recipe will be so nice for those of you who live in a place where the weather is getting chillier. Chillier. Get it? Anyhow, this pumpkin chili recipe is surprisingly wonderful. I was lucky enough to find it from Bowl of Delicious–a really delightful food blog.
Daylight savings time has us falling back and the sun is setting earlier. Days are getting darker, nights are getting colder and we’re moving through Fall quickly, on our way to Winter. The change of seasons and weather provides us the opportunity to cook different dishes in order to keep our bodies warm and even capitalize on different foods that are in season. One food that you can make all year round is chili, but there’s something special about having a warm bowl on a cold night.
We’ve presented loads of different recipes on the blog, in different forms. Sometimes we use recipe cards; sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we use lots and lots of work; sometimes we don’t. One thing we always want to do is include lots of delicious pictures, but this time around, we’re going to use these pictures as the recipe.
During (nearly) every stage of the cooking process, we’re going to show you a picture and only provide a brief description as to what is going on. Since we’re not baking, precise measurements aren’t as important, and since we’re making chili, there aren’t any complex techniques. Plus, the most important thing to remember is that this is YOUR chili, and you should adjust the seasoning to make your mouth and tummy happy. (If you want to throw some serious heat in there, go for it!)
Ingredients you’ll need:
Step 1: Caramelize onions and garlic in a stockpot.
Growing up, I was the luckiest girl when it came to food. My family is full of recipes. From my mum’s recipes to my grandma’s recipes, I was surrounded by flavor and diversity. One that particularly stands out to me is Iowan Surprise–or simply “Surprise” for short. This one comes from my Grandma in Iowa. You’re probably asking, What is “Surprise” anyway? Well. it’s basically a special version of chili, if you want to relate it to another food. It’s a wonderful comfort food while being a great family meal. Plus, there is so much variation allowed in this recipe. There’s a meat version, a vegetarian version, a spicy version, a non-spicy version, and so on! I obviously had the vegetarian style, while the rest of my family had the meat version. All you have to do is leave out the beef. Let’s get to the recipe.
Yikes, what a long title. Anyways, I’m here to bring you something that could be possibly even more amazing than carving a pumpkin…its seeds. As some of my friends may know (cough LENA), I absolutely love pumpkin seeds. In fact, I love them so much I can eat a whole container of them (sorry, Esther). The flavor of it, the grittiness, the amount of protein in the middle. There’s no downside (at least for me, but Chris doesn’t like how long it can stay in his mouth).
Indeed, it’s a great protein source. Did you know that one ounce of pumpkin seeds can give you 9.35 grams of protein? Not bad! Well said, Watto. And it is so easy it’s not even funny. We carved our pumpkins with paring knives (that was the hard part) and then I gutted them. I have memories of my dad letting my brother and I draw faces on our pumpkins, he would cut it, then let me do all the dirty work of grabbing its seeds and goo. And I loved it. So of course, I was the one to do it this time. But I was not going to throw them out, oh no! I collected all the seeds from the two pumpkins and prepared them. All in all, it took about an hour. However, 40 minutes of that was cooking time. The rest is easy.
What You Need:
First, set the oven to 350 degrees.
Next, get all the guts of your pumpkin(s) and place them in a strainer. This will take the most work. Have a light flow of water running over the strainer as you pick the seeds from the gunk and place the gunk in the sink.
Once you have all the seeds by themselves, place them into a small mixing bowl.
Place the melted butter into the bowl with the seeds (I used about 3/4 of a tablespoon) and mix around.
Then, shake plenty of salt into the bowl and mix again.
Spread out all the pumpkin seeds as flat as you can on a baking sheet. Then place in the oven from 20-40 minutes (depending on your oven and how many seeds you have) or until golden brown.
And that’s it! Serve and enjoy. I won’t be able to stop munching.
(Nymeria loved eating all the bits of pumpkin dropped on the floor)
