Earth Day is just around the corner and it serves as the perfect time to recognize our pollinator friends for all they do to keep our planet beautiful and bountiful. 2020 marked the global movement’s 50th year (you can read more on Earth Day’s history here) and it remains a movement that tackles some of the planet’s biggest issues including pollution, clean air and water, and global warming, and in 2021, EarthDay.org has its sights set on ways to Restore Our Earth™️.
On their website, our friends at EarthDay.org have many resources and ways to celebrate Earth Day, including 51 Ways You Can Restore Our Earth™️, one of which is to help protect our pollinators. If you’ve hung out with us for any length of time, you know just how much we value our pollinator friends, the true stewards of our global food supply, and we love to share fun and simple ways to help them out – here are five of our favorites:
- Plant bee-friendly flowers and flowering herbs in your garden and yard.
- Reduce or limit the use of chemicals and pesticides to treat your lawn or garden while plants are in bloom.
- Bees are thirsty. Put a shallow basin of fresh water with marbles or rocks in it for the bees to land on outside your home.
- Learn how to be a beekeeper with sustainable practices.
- Donate to an organization dedicated to helping protect and promote honey bees and other pollinators.
Now we can’t talk about how honey bees pollinate more than 90 crops and one in every three bites of food we eat without sharing one of our favorite new recipes!
Through our partnership with nutrition and fitness expert Mitzi Dulan, RD, CSSD, America’s Nutrition Expert®, we are showcasing how honey bees pollinate your entire menu with recipes that focus on whole food nutrition and highlight honey bee-pollinated ingredients. This month we are exploring the delicious combination of peppery radishes, crunchy sunflower seeds and sweet honey in this delectable Honey Glazed Radishes with Sunflower Seeds recipe. We’re not sure about you, but this dish will be hitting our tables all season long!
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. – radishes, trimmed and halved
- 1/4 cup – balsamic vinegar
- 3 T – honey
- 1/3 cup – water
- 1/4 tsp. – salt
- 3 T – sunflower seeds, divided
- Parsley, chopped, for garnish
Directions:
Combine radishes, vinegar, honey, water, and salt in medium saucepan and bring to a quick boil. Reduce heat and simmer over medium for 10-12 minutes until liquid has reduced. Stir in 1 1/2 T sunflower seeds.
Place radishes into a serving dish and top with remaining 1 1/2 T sunflower seeds and parsley.
Serve and enjoy!
We hope that you enjoy this recipe just as much as we do, and be sure to check back each month as we share a new honey bee-inspire recipe!