I picked up an interesting little cookbook at the library "Forbidden Fruits and Forgotten Vegetables" It doesn't have a ton of recipes, but they are fun and plenty of O beneficials are featured in it.

My first recipe I tried was for an Italian peasant soup with Swiss chard and dandelion leaves. It's simple, once you get the greens good and clean, you just put them in a big pan with the water that clings to the leaves, cover tightly, then heat on medium for 15 minutes, add liquid (it calls for water but I use chicken broth) and simmer for 30 minutes or so until tender. That's it! Simple. Then to serve it, the suggestion is to brush some Italian bread with olive oil, rub a fresh cut clove of garlic on that, and pour the soup over the top. I found it also works to rub the bowl with olive oil, or mince some into it, and drizzle olive oil on that.

I've taken to just tossing beneficials together, and given enough vegetables, garlic, onions, and spices, it usually works out really well...better than I usually expect.

One of my convenience foods is roasted/dried garlic and sea salt in a grinder (from Costco) for a quick bit of garlic. I love the stronger flavor of fresh garlic, but this is certainly easy and good. Add that to lemon juice and olive oil and you've got a simple salad dressing. Add taco seasoning to that (look out for avoids and fillers in these! I use Gluten Free Pantry's version), and you have taco salad dressing.

Another convenience is to cook up a large stockpot full of broccoli at once, taking care not to overcook it, and use that throughout the week. You leave it crispy enough that you can toss it into foods as they finish cooking and it won't overcook. That way there's no excuse to leave out the vegetables from your meals. This is now what I consider my staple food, where I would have used rice or bread, I now use broccoli. It works, and leaves me with a lot more energy than a grain would.

An indulgence that I've found to be worthwhile is a high quality olive oil. Cook's Illustrated reviewed these in the recent issue, and I was happy to see the one I bought was one of their recommendations 'Nunez de Prado' from Spain. There were two others they recommended highly, one wasn't too expensive. If they seem expensive keep in mind that you'll only use small amounts at a a time to drizzle on top of foods right before serving...it's not for cooking. I don't drink wine, so I can put some of my connoisseur money into olive oil ;-) The flavor and scent is amazing and it really enhances every beneficial food I've put it on. If you're worried about that broccoli getting 'tired' this will wake it right up!

I also took a chance and bought some green tea from costco, it's made in Japan so I figured it might be ok. It's no Mr. Itaru's, but it is actually pretty good. It maintains its green color like green tea should. The benefits of green tea on diabetes and diabetic neuropathy are remarkable, as well as its protective effects against cancer, so I drink it for medical reasons...can't say I don't enjoy it a bit though, even without sweetener.