The coronavirus pandemic temporarily tripped up four city business owners who combined to create the monthly Her Kitchen cooking and wellness classes. They started by launching a half-year series of hands-on, plant-based classes at Askher’s juice café in Black Rock – but quickly adjusted to teach the lessons online instead, from their own kitchens.

“We were able to provide a really great support system,” said Susan Morreale, who along with her daughter, Ciara, operates Her Story Boutique.

“We did the same six-month series that we planned originally, just virtually, which gave people the added benefit of being able to cook at home,” Ciara Morreale said.

Going forward, the Morreales – along with partners Sally Gower, owner of Eat Well Buffalo and Sarah Nasca, co-owner of five Askher’s locations – will lead another six-month series with the same format starting next month. They also will offer separate monthly classes led by top regional chefs. Cost per chef-taught class is $48 to $65. The series cost $395 and includes ingredients for two complete meals and a healthy nutrition workbook. Register and learn more at herkitchenbuffalo.com.

Her Kitchen had a waiting list for the first cooking series but can open the new classes to greater numbers because the teaching is virtual.

The four women have discovered on their own journeys that food can complement medicine, helping prevent and address obesity, diabetes, heart disease, some forms of cancer and more.

They share tips and recipes they’ve learned along the way to help class participants cook healthy foods with ingredients found in many kitchen pantries and cupboards, to crowd out potato chips and cookies for comfort foods that nurture wellness, and to treat themselves to restaurant meals with nutritious choices.

“We have planted the seeds where it doesn’t have to be like, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to be in my kitchen for hours,’ ” said Susan Morreale, a breast cancer survivor. “We made it fun and we made it easy.”

Nasca handles much of the cooking and homemade mocktail-making during the series – including healthier ingredient substitutions for traditional dishes – while others help and share tips about vitamins, minerals and compounds that make certain foods more valuable. All helped devise twists and turns on the recipes, which are heavy on fresh herbs, legumes, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Key ingredients – say lentils, fresh pomodoro sauce, or mango salsa – are used in at least three ways in dishes that cover a variety of ethnic favorites.

“Somebody contacted me from the class and said, ‘I always thought plant-based cooking would be more expensive,” Gower said. “She said, ‘I couldn’t believe how much less expensive it was and usually the ingredients are things that I have in my cupboard.’”

The class leaders try to keep things simple and manageable.

“When you try to go plant-based, sometimes that gets very overwhelming as people talk about all these different flours and gums and thickeners and things like that,” Nasca said, “and we didn’t want to overwhelm people. We really wanted to focus on the health and wellness of plant-based eating.

“As Sue brought up when we started the classes, ‘we want to make people fall in love with cooking again.’”

They asked chefs to show students how they can step up plant-based dishes if they choose. Steve Gedra, of Black Sheep Restaurant and Bar, led the first class last month; Zina Lapi, chef at Casa Azul Mexican restaurant downtown, will teach the next class Oct. 26.

“We wanted to showcase that there are a lot of plant-based options here in Buffalo and that you can go to a nice restaurant and not just have a salad,” Susan Morreale said.

The Her Kitchen contingent hopes the virtual nature of their enterprise opens doors to plant-based eating for a greater audience.

All four women said the pandemic wrought similar adjustments on their individual businesses, too.

Gower was used to teaching healthy eating in-person to groups of 10 to 20 people. She continues to learn how to reach and educate audiences online.

The Morreales brought their clothing and personal retail lines onto the sidewalk of their Hertel Avenue store. They met more neighbors and new shoppers in the process.

Nasca and Angelo Ashker, who already have reinvented their juice café offerings, also have spent the pandemic planning a new location in Niagara Falls. They moved counters and fresh-pressed juices, smoothies and coffee drinks curbside in their Buffalo cafes.

“The pandemic provided an open door,” said Nasca, “to how we’re going to walk into this next chapter of Ashkers.”