A student in my volunteer teaching class has a garden and she gave me some cherry tomatoes she grew, and a couple of goya, Japanese bitter gourds. I used the tomatoes last night in my dinner salad, and topped it with my homemade healthy dressing.

As for the goya, I had never made it before. She told me they need to be sliced open, and the innards scooped out and discarded, which is what I did first. Then I sliced them, added them to a 300 g bag of frozen mixed Japanese vegetables, and simmered them in water to which I added smoked paprika, turmeric, ginger, and nutritional yeast.

After the water boils down I was left with a nice, thick, slightly cheesy flavored sauce that covered everything.

To finish my dinner off, I had two small potatoes, not shown in the photos.

It was very filling, and delicious. And everything altogether, including the potatoes, came to just 398 calories.