I am always learning about good nutrition for me and for Maria, our food choices and habits are always changing. We are eating very lightly at night, sometimes just cottage cheese and fruit. We feel better, sleep better.

I have lost about 10 pounds, always a good thing for heart patients, have given up bread and turned even more to vegetables and fruit, and lean meats – turkey, chicken, and also fish.

I think we will end up eating two meals a day with some light food in the early evening. Lots of protein, few carbs. It feels good and my blood tests results were stellar, my blood numbers are fine, my cholesterol is low. Tonight, I prepared one of my new staples, a veggie casserole.

I layer it. Sliced sweet potatoes on the bottom, firm Tofu, then a layer of beets, squash, sliced red pepper and kale, sliced pears, topped with cranberry goat cheese and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese. Cooked at 425 degrees for an hour. We will have some of it tonight, some of it for lunch tomorrow.

Eating well is not simple, fast, or cheap. I have to really think about what I buy at the market (I do the shopping and cooking in our house, Maria is a committed chopper, as all obsessives are). I have to plan early, prepare early and get it in the oven early.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are not available everywhere, especially in the country.

Fresh food is more expensive. Sometimes I buy organic food, but not always. I think it has been somewhat overblown and used too often as another marketing tool to jack up prices. I love shopping for food, it feeds the nurturing part of me, and I love cooking for Maria, she is hopeless about food. If I didn’t shop and cook, she would eat corn chips and salsa for dinner every night. When she is working on her art, the real world recedes.

I have come to love this veggie casserole, I love the taste and the lightness of it.  For the past seven years, ever since I was finally diagnosed with diabetes (my grandfather was a diabetic), I  have been learning about nutrition. It has not been easy, it is very rewarding.