Pumpkin Seeds

You know how you start a garden (or inherit one from parents) and you can't bring yourself to cut back on the crops that have been there for decades?  My BIL has one of those and he is used to feeding his kids and their families. But the kids now have their own gardens, so the surplus goes to the rest of the family. Don't get me wrong, we truly appreciate it - but when you receive 5 dozen pie pumpkins, it rapidly changes what you thought you were going to get accomplished this week!

So I'm up to my ears in pie pumpkin - we wash, gut and bake them before mashing the flesh and freezing in pints. Just the right amount for a pumpkin pie (wife's favorite breakfast!)

You can imagine there are more than a few seeds left over from this process, but I haven't figured out an efficient means to strip the seeds from the fibrous innards. Squeezing them out of the "guts" by hand tends to leave a bunch of escapees on the floor throughout the kitchen. And I'm not trying to salvage all of them (shame on me), but I'm rather inundated!

Any suggestions?

For roasting,  or feeding to the livestock (I grind them, and add them to their herbal dewormer), I ferment them in water overnight - sometimes two nights, if they're stubborn. If I want to replant them, I rub them between my hands, under water (in a small washtub), then pick out the seeds & strain the goo, which gets added to my dog's raw food.

i usually wring the seeds out from the rest of the ‘guts’ in or just over a bowl of water. then i can fill and pour off the water in the bowl a few times to clean the seeds (the best of which tend to sink) of the remnants of ‘guts’ (which don’t quite float but can get stirred up in the water easier).

We got a big pumpkin this year, and I have four goals for it:  1, look cool for the season outside my front door.  2 take a few seeds to hopefully plant in springtime and thus grow my own pumpkins.  3 roast the rest of the seeds and have my father come over to eat them with us as he loves them.  And 4, try that new pumpkin pasta with butter sage parmesan sauce recipe I saw online yesterday.