I’ve been asked a few times since my pumpkin blog if there is an easy way to separate the stringy pumpkin matter from the seeds (when wanting to cook the seeds). The answer is “yes” and here’s how:
After halving the pumpkins and scooping out the seeds and strings, place all of it into a bowl.
Then cover the contents with cold water. Use your hand to swish everything around, helping to separate the seeds from the strings, so it all sits freely and then watch what happens! After a minute or two, since the density of both are different, each will behave differently in water. The pulpy pumpkin strings will sink and the seeds will float and will look like this…
Then, just use your hand to scoop (skim) the seeds out of the top of the water. Pick out any few stray pieces of pumpkin strings. Then rinse, blanch, season, roast and eat up!