Botanica WestHolistic Healing & Therapy from a Master Herbalist

This is for our dedicated Yoga instructors.

They are both vegetarian and one has lactose intolerance. There are soy cheeses out there but they are high in added fat and sodium and can be quite expensive and yogurt cheese is hard to find and still considered a milk product.

Our life couch made a pretty important statement that “why is vegetables and especially organic nuts the same price as expensive cuts of meat? Shouldn’t it be cheaper to be vegetarian?”

Hello! It can be difficult and expensive to be a vegan when bad food is cheaper to eat especially in these hard times.

Nut cheese and seed cheese a great substitute to replace protein your not getting from meat. And it’s easy to make in a food processor

The important thing to making not cheese is to soak the nuts or seeds overnight. You can use 2-3 different kinds of nuts and seeds so it doesn’t overwhelm the other dishes your eating.

The rule of thumb with nut cheese is

2 cups soaked nuts and seeds
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1-2 clove garlic or 1 tsp lemon zest
1/4 cup olive or other oil
salt to taste

Puree in a food processor or blender until smooth. use it as if it were cream cheese
or soft goat cheese. It can be used in vegan lasagna.

Try it? It’s delicious and easy to make

From the kitchen of Helene Gentili from Botanica West

This is for Adam and Lacey our dear  and dedicated Yoga instructors

I told them about veggie mass at the clinic and I promised I would post it.

Once a month when I consolidate the mess in my fridge I’ll make a load of veggie mass.

What is veggie mass you ask?

Its kind if like a veggie meat/loaf/ protein replacement. You can fill taquitos

with it, make vegetable loaf, veggie burgers, tostada topping, stuff cabbage

and grape leaves you name it. And it’s inexpensive.

I wrote an article a while back for a local magazine in my area about

making a bean recipe that doesn’t fall through the grill. And Veggie

mass was born. And then I realized with this veggie mass base you can

make a lot of other variations to add to your vegetarian menu.

Many years ago when my husband and I worked for a few months

in Aspen Colorado in the seventies. I had a chance to work at

Natures Storehouse a famous and well known by the locals health

food store. And we made some of the first forms of vegetarian meat

replacements and since we juiced daily we had two juicers going

one with fruit and one with vegetables only. It was a pity to see all

that high fiber pulp go into the compost pile.

So we had cooked beans and grains available to mix with it along with

good ole Dr. Bernard Jensen vegetable and protein seasoning and

veggie mass was born.

The rule of thumb for making this mass is

1 part cooked mashed bean matter

(2 cups or two cans drained)

Like black bean, lentils, garbanzos, kidney,

white beans, limas, red beans ect more

variety the better

1 part cooked grain matter (2 cups)

such as couscous, leftover oatmeal, brown rice

or other rice doesn’t matter if its seasoned or not,

quinoa, grits, cornmeal, multigrain cereal

at least two kinds.

1/2 part shredded vegetable matter (1cup)

Parsley, onion, chard, squash, carrot, peppers,

potato you name it mix it up

1/2 part ground nuts and seeds (1 cup)

Pepita’s, sunflower, walnuts, pecans, almonds,

hazelnuts, filberts the list goes on

or every two cups of veggie mass you need

1 level tsp total of seasoning

I use two or three of the following. Salt an pepper,

Garlic salt,

veggie seasoning, soy sauce instead of salt,

protein seasoning your

favorite herbs and spices.

Mix it in a mixer or food processor It should

be the consistency of soft meat loaf.

Once this is made it can be easily frozen and some used later.

You can fry it  like hamburger and

make taco filling or

tostada topping and

even fill taquitos with it.

You can mix one half Veggie mass  and one

half with of more of the grain mixure, pat it out

intopatties and coat it with seasoned

breadcrumbsor seasoned cornmeal and make

veggie burgers.

There is so many things you can do with this mixture.

From the kitchen of Helene Gentili at Botanica West