The Beauty and Benefits of Sunflowers
Stop and Smell the Sunflowers
You can never mistake a sunflower for any other. It's impossible.
Such a tall golden flower impresses you immediately with an instant recognition of Summer. A field of waving sunflowers can stop you dead in your tracks.
How lovely is this flower, with such a bright golden beauty that has captured the sunshine of a hundred sunny days.
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
Sunflowers from Seed
Sunflower Seed Pie
You can make this pie in advance and freeze it for up to a month. Thaw it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
Cook Time
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Serves:4 - 6
Ingredients
- 9 inch pie crust
- 3 eggs
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- 1 cup corn syrup
- 1 cup sunflower seeds
Instructions
- 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.
Recipe : Avocado and Lettuce Salad with Sunflower Seeds
- 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
- 2 avocados peeled pitted and sliced
Instructions
- 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 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. .
The versatility of this healthy oil is recognised by cooks of every level. I value this golden oil for its light taste, frying performance, health benefits and, of course, the taste..
When choosing sunflower oil, try to get the unrefined oil.
The Shelf Life of a bottle of Sunflower Oil is 12 Months
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.
The Sunflowers of Van Gogh
Click thumbnail to view full-sizeVan Dyck and a Sunflower
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.
Fields of Golden Sunflowers
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
Gazing up at the Sun
The Sunflower in Mythology
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.
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~
Keep your face to the sunshine and you can't see the shadow.
That's what sunflowers do.
© 2008 Susanna Duffy