Warning: I am about to give you a behind the scenes look into my brain.

At times (a lot of times) I see something awesome in the world, you know like, electricity, heart surgery, computers, and wine (in no particular order) and I think to myself, “Damn. It’s a good thing the world didn’t depend on me to create these things.” But I am okay with this and just thankful that there are people out there who are smarter than me. I mean, we all know our strengths, right?

BUT…..

You guys. The other day my husband was carving a pumpkin with our boys and they wanted to save the seeds to roast. They gave me a bag filled with a pulpy, seedy mess. Great. Thanks. And after trying to hand pick the seeds and strain them in a colander to no avail, I had a moment. A moment wherein if the entire world depended on me to solve this one problem, I would have succeeded. The world would be a better place, just as we are with electricity, heart surgery, computers and wine (again, in no particular order) with the revelation that occurred in my mom-mushed brain. I figured out how to separate the pulpy pumpkin mess from the seeds in TWO easy steps. …… I know, it’s crazy talk.

You see, I used to teach science. (Stop. Just stop.  No really, you can stop laughing now. I was a damn good science teacher). Anyway, I taught a unit on mixtures and more specifically how to separate mixtures. And after laboriously hand plucking seeds out of the pulp, my revelation came to fruition. “Hmm, I wonder if seeds float? And if they do float, I wonder if pulp sinks?” And after a few seconds of hypothesization, I threw the pulpy mess into a bowl, added water, swirled it around and can I get a “WOOT! WOOT!!” the seeds floated and the pulp damn right sank. Somebody hand this girl a skimmer because we’ve got an invention on our hands here!

And in the 10 seconds it took me to skim the beautiful seeds from the water to line a tray, my dear husband googled how to separate seeds from pumpkin pulp and it turns out, this method had already been discovered.

Shucks.

But, like I said, if this problem were solely up to me, I would have figured it out. With no help. Not even from google.

You heard it here first, folks:

If you are wondering how to clean pumpkin seeds follow these simple steps:

1. Put them in a bowl and add water.

2. Skim the seeds off the surface.

….. and then I boiled them in salt water for 10 minutes

….. laid them flat and tossed with canola oil

……roasted them at 350 for 20ish minutes

…..tossed them with sea salt and Old Bay seasoning

…. and then we had a pumpkin seed snack. With no pulp. Because IIIII figured out how to get rid of the pulp. By myself.

And if pumpkin seeds don’t interest you, maybe the Friends and Family sale at Shop Bop will? Check my Fashion page later today for my favorite picks. Because what goes better with savory pumpkin seeds than a little online shopping? Ugh, this, I love. I think we’re gonna need more pumpkin seeds.