The Beauty and Benefits of Sunflowers

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Stop and Smell the Sunflowers

You can't mistake a sunflower. It's impossible to mistake a sunflower.

It's a distinctive, golden-flowering plant, Helianthus annuus, full of seeds which contain a yellow, sweet oil. Apart from the golden beauty, sunflowers are incredibly useful. The valuable edible oil has more Vitamin E than any other vegetable oil, the flowers yield a yellow dye, and the seeds are eaten dried or roasted.

What more benefit can a plant be? How more lovely is this flower, with such a bright golden beauty that has captured the sunshine of a hundred sunny days.

Golden Petals

The heart that has truly loved... 

The heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turned when he rose
!
~Thomas Moore

Helianthus, the Sunflower 



The name of the sunflower, Helianthus, is Greek and means, curiously enough, Sunflower.

There was once a beautiful water-nymph called Clytie who fell in love with Helios, the God of the Sun. She was so much in love that she would sit on the grass and gaze up at the sun all day long but Helios, in his travels, looked over the world and never once did he see Clytie.

The other Gods took pity on her and turned her into a flower. Her legs became the sunflower's stem, her face became the flower and her golden hair the petals.

Today, in the form of a sunflower, Clytie still stares up at her love and this is why the sunflower's face always turns to follow the path of the sun.

Sunflowers on Show 


Time Lapse Sunflower

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SUNFLOWERS: A day in the life

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Sun Flowers 2005

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curated content from YouTube

Van Gogh's Sunflowers 

A simple parable about the brevity of life

Vincent van Gogh painted these sunflowers after leaving his native Holland for the south of France with the dream of starting an artistic community. He began to paint sunflowers to decorate a bedroom for his friend Paul Gauguin.

The series of paintings was made possible by the innovations in manufactured pigments in the 19th Century. Without the vibrancy of the new colours, such as chrome yellow, Van Gogh may never have achieved the intensity of Sunflowers.

These most famous of all sunflowers in art hold at their heart a simple parable about the brevity of life; they are at varying stages in the life cycle, from withered and wilting to vibrant full bloom.Sunflowers, c.1888

van Gogh, Vincent
Buy at AllPosters.com

The Spirals of Nature 

We are accustomed to seeing the spiral in Nature. A spiral is a curve which emanates from a central point, getting progressively farther away as it revolves around the point. If you look closely at the centre of a sunflower you can see that the disk flowers grow in a pattern of two opposite spirals.

Recipe : Lettuce, Avocado and Sunflower Seed 

* 1/2 cup olive oil
* 1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
* 1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
* 1 tablespoon minced garlic
* 1 tablespoon mayonnaise

* 2 small heads iceberg lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
* 1/3 cup sunflower seeds (about 2 ounces)
* 2 avocados peeled, pitted, sliced

Preparation

Combine olive oil, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar and garlic in small bowl and whisk to blend. Whisk in mayonnaise. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.

Combine lettuce and sunflower seeds in bowl; toss with enough dressing to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Top with avocado slices. Pass remaining dressing separately.

Sunflower Oil 

Healthy, natural sunflower oil is produced from oil type sunflower seeds.

Sunflower oil is light in taste and appearance and supplies more Vitamin E than any other vegetable oil. It's a combination of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats with low saturated fat levels. When choosing sunflower oil, try and get the unrefined oil.

The versatility of this healthy oil is recognized by cooks internationally. Sunflower oil is valued for its light taste, frying performance and health benefits.

 

The Shelf Life of a bottle of Sunflower Oil is 12 Months

Recipe : Sunflower Seed Pie 

9 inch pie crust, frozen , fresh or refrigerated
3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup sunflower seeds

Heat oven to 375*. Beat eggs, sugar, salt, butter and syrup. Stir in sunflower seeds. Pour into pastry lined pie plate.

Bake until set, 40 to 50 minutes. Cool slightly. Serve warm or refrigerate.

Pie can be made in advanced and frozen. Store no longer than 1 month. Unwrap pie and thaw in refrigerator 20 minutes.

Recipe : Blueberry Bran Sunflower Muffins 


Blueberry Bran Sunflower Muffins

* 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
* 1/2 cup milk
* 2 large eggs, beaten lightly
* 1 1/2 cups self-raising, all-purpose, flour
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup bran
* 3/4 cup hulled raw sunflower seeds, toasted lightly
* 1 1/2 cups blueberries, picked over

Preparation

In a bowl stir together the butter, the milk, and the eggs.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, the sugar, the baking powder, the salt, the bran, and the sunflower seeds. Add the butter mixture, stir the batter until it is just combined, and fold in the blueberries. (The batter will be thick and lumpy.)

Divide the batter among 12 well-buttered 1/2-cup muffin tins and bake the muffins in a preheated 425°F. oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until they are golden.

Turn the muffins out onto a rack and let them cool.

Sunflower Seed Huller and Oil Press 

Organic Gardening, April 1979

Vegetable oils used to be one of those items you just HAD to buy. Now here's how to make your own.

The Sunflower Seed Huller and Oil Press By Jeff Cox -- from Organic Gardening, April 1979, Rodale Press
Sunflower Seed Huller and Oil Press
IN 2,500 SQUARE FEET, a family of four can grow each year enough sunflower seed to produce three gallons of homemade vegetable oil suitable for salads or cooking and 20 pounds of nutritious, dehulled seed -- with enough broken seeds left over to feed a winter's worth of birds.

Sunflower Biscuits 

* 1/2 cup sunflower oil
* 3/4 cup brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
* 3/4 cup flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
* 3/4 cup sunflower seed

Method

Cream oil, brown sugar, egg and vanilla. Add flour, soda, salt (unless seeds are salted). Add oats and sunflower seeds.

Bake for 350 degrees 10-15 minutes.

Sunflowers on Video 


Sunflower Varieties - Green Ice, Kong, Joker, Ring of Fire..SEEDS FOR SALE !!

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Sunflowers

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Sunflowers EVERYWHERE!!!

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curated content from YouTube

Recipe : Jalapeno Sunflower Seed Pesto 

* a 3-inch fresh jalapeno chili, chopped (wear rubber gloves)
* 1/3 cup raw unsalted sunflower seeds, toasted lightly and cooled
* 1 1/2 cups packed fresh coriander
* 1 1/2 cups packed fresh parsley leaves
* 2 large garlic cloves, chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil plus additional to cover pesto

Preparation

In a food processor blend well all ingredients except additional oil. Transfer pesto to a jar with a tight-fitting lid, covering pesto with a layer of additional oil to prevent discolouration. Pesto keeps, covered and chilled, 2 weeks.

To use pesto:

Pour off layer of oil from pesto. To boiling salted water add pasta, cook till al dente. Reserve 2/3 cup of hot cooking water and drain pasta in a colander.

In a heated serving bowl stir together 3/4 cup pesto and reserved cooking water. Add pasta to pesto and toss until coated well.

The Wild Sunflower 

At early dawn, like soldiers in their places,
Rank upon rank the golden sunflowers stand;
Gazing toward the east with eager faces,
Waiting, until their god shall touch the land
To life and glory, longingly they wait,
Those voiceless watchers at the morning's gate.

Dawn's portals tremble silently apart;
Far to the east, across the dewy plain,
A glory kindles that in every heart
Finds answering warmth and kindles there again;
And rapture beams in every radiant face
Now softly glowing with supernal grace.

And all day long that silent worship lasts,
And as their god moves grandly down the west,
And every stem a lengthening shadow casts
Toward the east, ah, they love him best,
And watch till every lingering ray is gone,
Then slowly turn to greet another dawn.

~Albert Bigelow Paine~

Thought for the Day 

Keep your face to the sunshine and you can't see the shadow. That's what sunflowers do.

 

Please leave your comment for the Sunflower before she wilts ... 

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  • Reply
    DaveWalters DaveWalters Jun 5, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
    Susanna, I am really happy that I found your lens. I just joined Squidoo and I made my first lens about my favorite food....Sunflower Seeds. Oh I love them. Another one of my favorite foods are blueberries. I am going to make your recipe for Blueberry Bran Sunflower Muffins. Thank you!
  • Reply
    TopStyleTravel TopStyleTravel Mar 14, 2009 @ 12:42 pm
    Great lens on the beauty and benefits of Sunflowers. When I was a child, my father grew them in our garden. The sunflower seed pesto recipe sounds yummy. Lovely photos and resources.
  • Reply
    Deb Deb Feb 21, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
    We live in BC in the North Thompson region. Last year we decided to grow a trial 2 acre field of sunflowers. Amazing was the one word we heard from people over and over again. The faces of the flowers seem to make everyone just smile. In 2009 we are doing it again and hope that people take the time to come into our field to enjoy. This flower has more benefits than we know.
  • Reply
    sittonbull sittonbull Jan 19, 2009 @ 8:22 pm
    I grew 60 acres of Higholic Sunflowers under contract several years ago. They were so beautiful and generated a gigantic amount of public interest and was also popular with the birds. One of my favorite plants and I'm told native to SC. Very nice lens is faved and 5*

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