How to Perfectly Roast Pumpkin Seeds

Roasted pumpkin seeds are a necessity this time of year. But you can’t just dump a handful slimey seeds on a cookie tray for 30 minutes in the oven! There is an art to it. I’ll share my recipe with you here, but the rest is up to you.

Gut

First you have to carve your pumpkin and get all the goo and glop and seeds out. Put it all in a big bowl, don’t sit there trying to separate the seeds from the slime as you go.

Clean

Before you start, put a pot of salted water on the stove to boil. And set the oven to 325 F.

Separating the seeds from the goo is actually quite easy if you remember that seeds float and glop sinks! So fill the bowl with water and swish your hand around to separate the seeds and the slime. The seeds will float to the top and you can easy scoop them out in a colander. You’ve got the seeds about 90% clean now. A little more rinsing and picking and they’ll be good for next step.

Boil

That’s right, dump the seeds into the boiling water and let them simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Once done pour them back into the colander and then onto a towel for a quick drying. They don’t have to bone dry but dry enough for the next step.

Season

Now it’s time to oil, olive oil preferably, and season the seeds. I just use sea salt, but what ever you like. Toss the seeds with a bit of oil – not too much, we don’t want to deep fry them! And the toss in the seasoning. Make sure everything is evenly distributed.

Roast

Now spread the seeds evenly, in a single layer preferably, on a cookie sheet. Put the sheet in the oven and give it at least 10 minutes – probably more but check every 5 minutes and mix the seeds around each time. Pumpkin seeds cook from the inside-out so the only way to know if they’re ready is to try one. Keep on roasting until they’re nice and crunchy.

Eat

Pour the cooled seeds into a bowl and leave it on the counter or store them in a tupperware and bring a handful for lunches.

Cross-posted on 2FatDads

Blackberry Messenger on Android Review

BBM on Android

Let’s cut to the chase: it’s YAMA!

That’s right, I said YAMA!!! Yet Another Messenger App.

I know the Fan-berries are going to get their panties in a knot because I didn’t say that it’s revolutionary or something like that. But it’s not. In fact it looks indistinguishable from Google+ Hangouts, or Twitter DM’s, or any other messenger on my phone!

Don’t tell me “but BBM is secure!” Because so is Hangouts! Even Twitter is secure!!!

Forget the tired delivered and read indicators argument in favour of BBM. Back when the carriers were experimenting with data networks and connectivity was minimal this was a comforting feature. But now that I’m pumping data through my mobile phone faster than my DSL modem I think connectivity is taken for granted. And really, I don’t care if you read my message, I care if you acted on it! If I say “meet me at Starbucks in 10 minutes” then you can read that message all you want but if you’re late you’re triple-caramel-pumpkin-spice-skinny-latte-machiato is going to get cold and I’m not buying you another one!!!

Let’s look at the numbers for some messengers that work on Blackberry, Android and iOS:

• WhatsApp has over 325 million active users 
• Viber has over 200 million active users
• Google+ Hangouts (not available on Blackberry) has over 100 million active users (an estimate based on the over 400 million active Google+ users)
• Facebook Messenger probably has just under 100 million active users (they don’t reveal those numbers so it’s just an estimate)
• Kik has over 80 million active users – which is ironic since the founders originally worked for Blackberry

BBM clocks in somewhere around the 55 million mark. So you’re more likely to find your friends using something other than BBM.

And don’t forget the grand-daddy of them all: SMS!!! Venerable old text messages, they reach not just smart phones, but feature phones too. And with software like MightyText and iMessage they reach tablets and computers as well! In fact there are BILLIONS of active monthly SMS users! And there’s nothing to install or configure, it just works out of the box!

In my humble opinion, BBM was something that made Blackberry unique, something they could distinguish themselves with. Something for people to say “I want BBM” and they’d have to get a Blackberry to get it.

The reason for having a Blackberry is now limited to inertia on the enterprise side; and nostalgia or pride on the consumer side. Releasing BBM for Android (and iPhone) really just serves to prolong the inertia since IT departments can now re-assure their remaining Blackberry users that they’ll be able to communicate with all their iPhone or Galaxy toting colleagues using BBM.

I sure hope those people interested in buying Blackberry have a better business plan than relying on the inertia of existing customers to carry them forward!

Cross-posted on 2FatDads