- The day is here, my friends.
We are taking the biggest sunflower I've ever grown,
a true mammoth, and turn it into sunflower seeds,
which is my favorite snack as a kid.
When I played baseball, they called me Sucio.
I hit a lot of doubles.
Then I got really bad when I got to be about 13.
So I'm reliving my glory days.
The first thing we have to do is cut this guy down
because it is bowing under its own weight.
Take a look at the stalk, guys.
It is absolutely massive.
Cannot get my hand around it.
And this was just a volunteer,
so I definitely didn't decide to plant a sunflower
right in the corner of my bed.
Nevertheless, here it is.
So we're busting out the FELCO saw.
I took out the big guns for this one.
I'm gonna see if I can figure out how to make it not fall
while I do this, because if it falls,
it will ruin my determinate tomatoes.
(upbeat music)
Even halfway bowed over,
it is still a lot taller than me.
The sheer size of this.
I don't even know how much it weighs,
but all the weight's out here,
so it's the most awkward thing on Earth to hold.
But I wanna get a better look at it
so I'm gonna trim up all these dead leaves.
(upbeat music)
Step two, separate the head.
We've come a long way together, my friend,
but your journey ends now.
I think I'll take off about this much, just in case.
We got a nice thick stem there.
And this is gonna be our future sunflower.
I think what you can do is actually take a look at this.
A bit of that.
Look at these seeds.
Comment down below how many seeds you think we're gonna get.
Or maybe like volume.
But let's take a look at one.
Kind of see how viable the seed is here.
Give it the old dugout crunch.
I mean that is a fully viable,
delicious, roastable sunflower seed.
This is gonna be, hold on.
Raw, it's actually not very good.
I just realized I'm gonna reserve 10 seed packs for sale
of these seeds on our store.
So check the description.
I'll put them in.
There'll be a little special product.
And you know what?
I'm gonna charge for 'em.
It's gonna be like 10 bucks a pack, guys.
So the thing about sunflowers,
besides the fact that every part of them is edible,
is that the stalk is certainly useful in the garden.
So I'm gonna go where it bends.
I don't really wanna deal with that part
so I'm just gonna cut off right about here.
We don't need that part, but take a look at this.
I mean, this is extremely sturdy.
Extremely sturdy.
It's probably about five, 10 pounds.
And I can use this as some sort of trellising
or arch structure.
Maybe next season, we'll see how it dries out.
It's been a while, my friends.
I have let the giant head dry,
but also some new entrants, some smaller heads,
still respectable, and different styles of sunflowers.
Take a look at this one.
Very, very weird.
This is one that, honestly,
I can't wait to get the seeds off
'cause this image is disturbing to me.
So you have two main categories of sunflowers,
confectioner's sunflowers, really bizarrely named.
I don't think a lot of people bake with it,
so kind of weird.
But also the black oil sunflower seeds,
which are typically used for microgreens.
But let's go ahead and just scrape away our sunflowers.
They come out super easy.
Probably gonna lose some.
I'm not gonna roast all these.
I will allow a little specialty seed drop on the store.
We're gonna do an exclusive drop,
maybe 50 packs of these seeds.
These are quite rare, so why not give you guys a chance?
(upbeat music)
Okay, I don't really feel like getting
the rest of these out.
This is a juicy piece of protein for the chickens.
Let's see what they think.
(whimsical music)
I've never seen them so skeptical.
(upbeat music)
All right, so we're good to go here.
The interesting thing that I did not know
is that you have to simmer the seeds in saltwater
to kind of plump them up before you actually roast them.
You can also do this by soaking them, but that's overnight.
So I wanna go a little bit faster here.
So I've got the induction cooktop out.
I'll just dissolve some salt in here.
And then I'll go for a quick boil into an hour long simmer.
I'm saving this many my friends.
Maybe a little bit more for you guys.
You can check it out in the description
how you can get this exclusive seed
directly from the Epic Homestead.
Guaranteed to grow at least an 18 inch diameter head.
The rest of these are gonna get roasted.
(upbeat music)
We've been simmering for an hour.
These induction burners make some really weird sounds.
I'm a little scared of it.
Says hot.
So all I need to do now,
I guess the whole point of this, by the way,
is just to kind kind of plump up that seed,
hydrate it a little bit 'cause it was bone dry.
So I think roasting a bone dry sunflower seed
just wouldn't be that good.
This gives some sort of salty infusion to the seed,
maybe lightly even cooks the seed.
But we are kind of running and gunning
by the seat of our pants here,
so what I'm gonna do is just drain it off.
Doesn't smell bad, doesn't smell good.
Just kind of smells like very, very vegetal
is the word I would use there.
So we're off.
And then just on to these baking pans,
where I'm gonna let them dry on some paper towels
just for a little bit.
I just don't want 'em be sopping wet.
So spread about half out here, the other half out here.
And I'm not even too concerned about any sort of debris
in this mix, 'cause again,
it'll be roasted sunflower seeds at the end of the day.
I could do that winnow process at that point as well.
These are some smoking hot though, I'll tell you that.
Actually, I'm curious what one tastes like right now.
Let's take a quick peek here.
(exhales sharply)
That's pretty salty.
So there's the seed.
Mature seed.
Good sign.
Let's give it a quick taste.
Actually, tastes really good.
It's just mushy as all hell because it's not been roasted.
So let's spread this out.
Check this out.
Little quick soak, but a quick wash.
Not bad at all.
So we're gonna roast these babies at 325
for 25 to 30 minutes.
We'll kind of agitate them here and there.
But first, let's spread 'em out on the plate.
I told you in a recent video,
I've been on this fitness program.
This is all I eat, just my own sunflower seeds.
That's why I've been shedding weight like crazy.
By the way, these pans, became obsessed.
Went to Crate & Barrel with my mom,
bought her an air fryer, which she has used religiously,
found this company, American Pan.
Not bad.
High quality pan.
Doesn't do that like, (burbles) wobble thing.
Okay, in we go.
Check in with you.
We season afterwards,
and I think I'm just gonna go with a classic salt.
Okay, guys, we are done.
So take a peek, some nice browning.
I feel like we're good to go.
But there's only one real way to know,
and that would be crunch test.
(upbeat jazz music)
I mean, that's a satisfying crunch.
That's there.
Okay, we did it,
but now we need to make a custom Epic flavoring.
So what I'm gonna do is toss these all
in a big old bowl here.
In they go.
We need some olive oil.
And then I've got some green pepper seasoning
that I actually made.
So we dehydrated some green peppers,
a mix of mild and slightly hot.
So I'm gonna toss a good dose of that in here
just to spice this up a little bit.
But then I have hit,
actually my girlfriend hit, Trader Joe's.
We're gonna do some ranch
because when I was playing baseball as a kid,
ranch sunflower seeds absolutely were my jam.
So let's see what happens.
(upbeat music)
Okay, there's only one way to know
how good these really are
and it's to take 'em to the flavor snob, Jacques.
Okay, Jacques, we've roasted something for you.
I called you the flavor snob, sorry.
But it's true.
- It's true. - It's true.
- It's true. - Let's go in.
Let's see what we think.
- I wanna get an aroma first. - Mm.
- That smells really good. - Mm-hmm.
- All right, let's see.
Whole shell.
- You gonna eat the whole shell?
- That's really good.
Wow, what'd you put on this?
- Ranch dressing. - Ooh.
- Or ranch spice.
- That's great. - Hmm.
- Wow.
- Honestly, way easier than it seemed.
Very minimal steps.
Cool garden to table recipes.
To me, it's like a basics, right?
I love sunflower seeds,
so I have like four more giant heads sitting out here.
If you don't wanna save the seeds, maybe save some,
roast the rest.
- This is better than any other sunflower seed I've had.
- Really?
- I don't like sunflower seeds that much,
but this is almost worth it.
- It's not as salty,
but it's a little bit more rich tasting.
- It's crispier. - Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Awesome. Thanks, guys.
Good luck in your garden and keep on growing.
(shears snipping)