Whack-O-Jack-O-Lantern

Halloween is officially one week away! So, the other night, Sean and I decided to put our pumpkin carving skills to good use. As you all know, the first step in creating a whack-o-jack-o-lantern is to go to the pumpkin patch and pick out the best looking gourd! Megan and I decided to make that trip together and we took her lil pup Brody (who makes my heart melt), and since he’s so darn cute, we decided to take some pumpkin patch pictures with the little man. Our photo opportunity pretty much consisted of me throwing him into a batch of pumpkins, him being scared, and then him glaring at me but looking innocent at the same time… sorta like this:

Uhhhh-dorable. Love that lil guy.

Anyhoo, Sean and I always like to do different designs than your typical triangle face jack-o-lantern. I found a cool image of a tribal looking fish and we decided that it was perfect for our pumpkin. As he was drawing out the pattern, I scooped the goo. Here’s what we were going for:

After I scooped out all of the slimy goodness, he got drawing the pattern on the pumpkin and I separated the seeds to bake! Yummm J  I put them in a strainer and rinsed them off with the sink sprayer and then tried to dry them as much as possible. After they were somewhat dry, I spread them on to a foil lined baking sheet and sprinkled the snot out of them with some seasoned salt and garlic. After shaking them a bit and sprinkling some more seasoning on them, I threw them into a 375* oven for about 25 minutes. I took them out and saw that the seasoning wasn’t sticking to well so I sprayed some olive oil spray over the seeds and shook them up again. The seasonings stuck so I put them in the oven to roast for just 5 more minutes. After the dinger went off, they came out looking perfect!

Meanwhile, outside, Sean was carving away…

After he was done with his strategic cuts, we plopped two tea lights in it and turned the lights off, it came out pretty cool! It’s sorta hard to tell exactly what it is (don’t tell Sean that, he’s very proud), but the fins and tail help to distinguish the design. So for the rest of the night, we hung out, ate some seeds and stared at our pretty cool looking punkin’! Happy Halloween peeps!