Low-Carb Roasted Jack O’ Lantern Pumpkins

For Roasted Jack O’Lanterns

1. If you want to take the optional festive step of making this a fun Halloween dinner. Make baked jack o’ lanterns to serve the soup.
2. Preheat oven to 450°. Wash and dry pumpkins. Cut circular lids out of pumpkins, being careful to keep pumpkin shells intact and without any knife pierces. Scoop out seeds. Spray insides of pumpkin shells and lids with olive oil spray and season with salt and pepper.
3. If desired, you can carve very shallow jack o’ lantern faces into the pumpkins or red kuri squash and gently peel the skin away from the cut areas. Don’t go too deep, a 1/32″ to 1/16″ removal of surface skin is sufficient – just the outer layer. Rub cut out areas with olive oil spray.
4. While soup is cooking, roast pumpkins or squash on a baking sheet in a 450° oven. Pumpkins will take about 35-40 minutes to roast. Test by piercing pumpkins with a knife. If knife goes in easily, they’re done. Don’t over cook them. You don’t want mushy pumpkins that collapse.
5. Remove pumpkins and lids from pan. Jack o’ lantern faces should show up as lighter areas from the browned pumpkin. If the faces don’t show up as prominently as you’d like and want to emphasize them, you can run a small kitchen torch (like the kind used to brulee desserts) over the face cut outs to embellish the faces.
6. Ladle cooked soup into roasted pumpkin bowls and serve with Parmesan crusted low carb rolls. We like to garnish soup with an optional grating or two of Parmesan cheese and a few crumbles of bacon and a few toasted pumpkin seeds.

For Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

1. Wash scooped seeds and toss with 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Sprinkle  with kosher salt.
2. Roast at 300° for 10 – 15 minutes or until crispy.