Whether you roast your own or purchase a bag full, try these recipes and tips for getting creative with pumpkin seeds.

Trick or Treat!

If Labor Day marks the end of summer, Halloween kicks off the holiday party season. In our house, with a spunky five-year old, we love dressing up in costumes all year long. So when Halloween comes around, the only problem is deciding what to wear – every day my son comes up with a new idea for his trick-or-treat outfit!

These Halloween treats are your secret weapon to fend off sugar-crazed kids without falling victim to the really scary stuff — hydrogenated fats, artificial preservatives and colors.

Packed with protein, zinc, iron and antioxidants, these little green guys are the perfect garnish. From soups to pasta and more, add their sweet flavor and fun crunch to your fall meals.

Trick or Treat! To many of us, those words are terrifying. Not because of the all those ghosts and goblins wandering around. It’s because of the shocking amount of candy in our midst. All those horrifyingly unnatural artificial colors and flavors and all those preservatives better suited for a mummy than a mommy. Eeeeekkk!

September is an overlap month in the world of vegetables. Tomatoes, squash, corn and other summer vegetables are still available in abundance and while most of these are still quite good, the cool fall evenings and crisp mornings bring with them that familiar tug in my tummy to the hardier greens and roots of fall.

Photo courtesy of julianmeade via Flickr

Pumpkin Carving 101 My neighborhood in Santa Cruz is the area Mecca for all things Halloween. We moved there in October of 2002 and I was mowing the front yard one day when a neighbor came by to introduce himself. He asked me if we knew about Halloween and how much candy did we buy. I said no and a 100-piece bag. He said we would need three times that much and he was right — 300+ kids and four super size bags of candy later and my family realized we were in Halloween heaven. The 2005 backyard harvest