Halloween is officially over! It’s about 10PM and the kids have stopped coming to the door. This year we carved 4 pumpkins and I took advantage of the seeds. I roast the pumpkin innards once in a while. I start craving for pumpkin seeds when the weather starts getting cold or in the months that in ‘R’. If the craving comes in September, I usually buy a pre-roasted bag and call it a year. If it happens during Halloween, you’ll find me separating the pumpkin meat from the seeds.

This year I went with a simple recipe – salt. I used salt in every step of this dish. After gutting the pumpkin, I put the innards in a bowl full of salted water. I’m not too sure why but it helped in the cleaning process. Other years I’ve tried a combination of herbs like rosemary and thyme but this year I wanted to go simple.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients
As many pumpkin seeds that you can collect.
Salt (not sure how much but I’d go with 1 teaspoon for every 2 cups of seeds)
Olive oil (1 teaspoon for every 2 cups of seeds)

Method
Separate the pumpkin seeds from the meat. Try to clean the seeds as best as you can. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Toss seeds in a bowl with the olive oil and salt (do this right after rinsing the seeds). Spread the seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Tip
Separate the seeds and meat in salted water. Then you can also reduce the amount of salt during the roasting process.

Experimenting with food is fun but it has a price. Sometimes you buy ingredents that you’ll never use, you buy too many ingredients, or worse case you FAIL.  A few days ago, I posted a recipe for Cap’n Crunch Fried Chicken. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan how much Cap’n Crunch cereal I needed so I ended up crushing the whole bag and was left with left over crumbs. I saved it thinking I’ll make the fried chicken recipe again. The crumbs never made it to partner with chicken. Instead I had a craving for onion rings and decided to experiment with the crumbs.

I used a fairly standard beer batter recipe to create a base and then covered it in the cereal crumbs right before frying. The Cap’n Crunch adds a gentle sweetness to the outside as well as a crispier crunch. This is a sweeter onion ring especially since onions add another form of sweetness.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup to dust onions
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground paprika
1 1/2 cups beer
Cap’n Crunch cereal crumbs
2 Onions
Method
Slice the onions to make 1/4 inch rings. Combine flour, egg, garlic powder, black pepper, and paprika in a mixing bowl and mix with a whisk until smooth (about 2 minutes).  Dust the onion rings in flour and dredge them in the batter. Then take the battered onion and cover it in Cap’n Crunch crumbs and then directly into hot oil. Brown them on both sides and drain on a wire rack or over paper towels.

Enjoy!

I was on vacation recently and decided to go back to my southern roots. Lucky for me I had some green tomatoes in the refrigerator (the intent was not to make fried green tomatoes). Too bad I didn’t have the movie on me. But I did rock out to some Sweet Home Alabama on my guitar while eating a batch.

Ingredients

• 4 large green tomatoes
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter milk
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 1 quart vegetable oil for frying

Method

1. Remove stem. Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick.
2. Whisk eggs, milk, and sugar together in a medium-size bowl.
3. Pour flour onto a plate.
4. Mix cornmeal, salt, pepper, paprika on another plate.
5. Coat tomatoes in flour then coat in the egg mixture.
6. Then dredge in cornmeal to completely coat.
7. In a large skillet (I use an iron skillet), pour vegetable oil (enough so that there is 1/2 inch of oil in the pan) and heat over a medium heat.
8. Place tomatoes into the frying pan in batches of 4, depending on the size of your skillet. Do not crowd the tomatoes, they should not touch each other. When the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side.
9. Drain them on paper towels.

Tip: Feeling lazy? Batter the tomatoes instead: Prepare pancake mix (from a box). Dust the sliced tomatoes in flour, dip into pancake mix, and fry.

About 12 years ago I ate at Planet Hollywood Guam and had one of the most amazing pieces of fried chicken strips ever. It was called Cap’n Crunch Chicken. Since then I’ve been making this recipe on special occasions for visitors who are also amazed with the taste and creativity. It always surprises people that the breading is really just cereal.

Cap’n Crunch Chicken Strips

Ingredients

• 4 pounds of chicken strips (breast meat works best)
• 6 cups of Cap’n Crunch cereal (pounded until it looks like coarse sand)
• 2 eggs scrambled
• Flour for dusting
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Oil for frying
• Pot for frying

Method
Cut chicken into strips and season with salt and pepper. Dust the strips with flour. In a separate bowl, scramble eggs. In another bowl, add the Cap’n Crunch. Pour oil into pot and put on top a burner a little less than medium heat.

Here’s the overall process: Dust with flour, coat with egg, roll in cereal, and fry.

Fry for 6-8 minute per side.

Enjoy!

Tip: The thinner you cut the strips, the faster it cooks. Also, if you cut it too thick, fry until golden brown and then place it in the oven at 300 degrees to finish it up. This also keeps the food warm.