National November and Roasted Pumpkin Seeds and Pie

Let’s take a look at the month of November, with Homeschooling Fundays Calendar, as I have encountered a number of bloggers stating it’s National this or that month or day. I wanted to check it out.

Today happens to be National Candy Day which is my excuse to finish off the leftover Halloween candy that none of the local trick-or-treaters received because they didn’t come this way. More for me…I didn’t buy that much to begin with so hopefully little damage will be done.

Yesterday was National Sandwich Day. I was a party pooper and didn’t have one but if I had, it would’ve been a turkey sammy with cheese and olive relish. Here are other food-related days.

5th- National Donut Day (by pure coincidence I am making apple cider donuts)
6th- (my dad’s b-day) National Nachos Day (love this)
7th- Magazine Day
12th- National Indian Pudding Day
14th- National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day
17th- Homemade Bread Day
23rd- National Cashew Day

November is National Blog Posting month-no joke-NaBloPoMo, which requires bloggers to sign up and post every single day of this month. I think this is silly for a few reasons.

1) It’s ridiculous to think that posting every day will involve must read/must make material/recipes. You know most of those days will involve a sneak peak into someone’s diary instead of their recipe book, which is cheating (in my opinion) for food bloggers on this “challenge.” Please, give us a story and recipe for this thing.

2) It’s kind of insulting for those bloggers who already do this but don’t scream those claims. I post every weekday, have since the end of July and you don’t see me going hey, give me credit-hey guys, look at me! I was singing that like Judy Garland.

3) It seems pretty self-absorbed to believe that people are just dying to read a post you have written as if their entire day revolves around this (if it does, you might want to reevaluate your priorities).

4) If this is your goal, ok but don’t you think you can make a better goal than that for the month? How about donating that time to helping in a food kitchen or an animal shelter or spend more time with family or commit to working out for your health or make it about money and set a goal to save X amount of money or not to spend money on eating out?

Those are the kinds of goals I think are worthwhile. I know personally, at the end of the month, I wouldn’t be patting myself on the back; I would instead be kicking my own ass for thinking that was a good idea with Thanksgiving and all. No, I am not doing this. That’s just my take.

This month is also: Good Nutrition Month, Hunger Awareness Month, National AIDS Awareness Month, National Novel Writing Month, National Peanut Butter Lover’s Month, National Pepper Month, National Raisin Bread Month, Vegan Awareness Month, National Pomegranate Month, National Roasting Month, and on and on.

Just some food for thought…wait, I would rather really eat so I’m going to go make something and put it in my stomach.

I forgot to include a simple recipe last week when I made amazing pumpkin pie with streusel. Since I made my own puree, I had pumpkin seeds that I roasted with salt. You can add any spice with that for an easy, tasty snack.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
My medium-sized sweet pumpkin had about a cup of seeds

Ingredients:
pumpkin seeds, rinsed and patted dry
1-2 tsp olive oil or canola oil
salt or sugar to taste
cayenne, cinnamon, or another spice you enjoy just to coat seeds

Preheat oven to 300. Toss seeds with oil, salt or sugar and any spices you might want. Place on a cookie sheet in a single layer and bake for about an hour until golden, turning every 15 minutes or so. I thought I would speed this process up by turning up the heat and they began to pop all over the oven so I don’t recommend this.