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Sticking to a strict vegan diet can be a challenge to some, especially if you’re just starting out. Many vegan practitioners tend to look for substitute meat and dairy products that can fill in the dietary gap that they left behind. However, not all faux meat and dairy products do a good job of standing in as a viable alternative.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be an expert cook to find the right kind of vegan dishes to satisfy you. There are many creative options out there that can do the job. Here are just a few vegan options that you might want to consider:

Vegan Pasta

Normally, pasta has loads eggs, cheese, and meat that make it difficult to convert into a proper vegan meal. This is especially true for pasta dishes like carbonara. However, it’s possible to find some creative substitutes that can still give you the same taste profile as legitimate pasta.

King oyster mushrooms are meaty enough to substitute pork while not strong enough to make the entire dish taste like mushrooms. Similarly, there are many tofu-based sauces that can be used along with miso and nutritional yeast to give it a richer quality. Finally, to get the signature taste of Pecorino Romano, you can use sauerkraut brine.

Vegan Parmesan Substitute

Finally, for those looking for the unique taste profile of parmesan cheese, there’s actually a way to reconstruct it in a safe, vegan fashion. This requires several herbs that can give you the same rich, tangy kick that parmesan is known for. The mixture includes miso, rosemary, olives, and lemon zest that need to be dehydrated to concentrate their flavor. The result is a savory and aromatic condiment that goes perfectly with any pasta dish or anything that requires you to use parmesan cheese.

Vegan Burgers

If you’re want a veggie burger that doesn’t have a bland taste to it, you should try making your own patties with a little bit of everything in it. Throwing in mushrooms and eggplant along with garlic, leeks, and celery should give your patties an extra kick in terms of flavor. Likewise, if you want to give your patties a good amount of texture, you should consider adding chickpeas, panko, and barley into the mix. And to top things off, don’t forget to add bread crumbs just before cooking the patties to avoid giving it a mushy texture.

Vegan “Bacon”

Mushrooms do a good job as a meat substitute and the king mushroom oyster is perfect when you want to recreate the consistency of bacon. What’s great with vegan bacon is that it can easily be used for any dish that requires bacon bits or bacon slices.

What’s important here is to have a smoker (even a homemade one) that you can use to give your bacon the smoky, signature flavor that you’re looking for. After dehydrating the thinly sliced mushrooms and smoking them until they achieve the desired crispy texture, you can have yourself some smoked mushroom “bacon” that looks and tastes just like the real thing.

Vegan Mayonnaise

One of the many things many vegan miss is mayonnaise. Fortunately, creating a substitute version isn’t that hard at all. The main trick here is the use of aquafaba. This liquid has proteins and starches that can stand in for egg in most cases. Once it’s mixed with chickpeas to help emulsify it, the resulting solution has the same consistency as mayonnaise. Just imagine how much better your sandwiches will taste with some vegan mayonnaise to give it some additional flavor and texture.

Finding the right kinds of vegan dishes isn’t that difficult as long as you’re willing to expand your mind and try to be a little creative. Hopefully, these recipes can help open up your options to accommodate your vegan needs.

Rome is an ancient city with thousands of years of history behind it and is home to some of the most famous sights in the world such as the Colosseum.  But for food fans, any trip to Rome is a balance of seeing the sights and sampling the food as the cuisine of the city is nearly as famous as its monuments.

Tasting the best of Rome

Usually, if you want to taste the best of classic or modern Roman cuisine, you would head to a restaurant but there is now another option available courtesy of a company called Withlocals.  The idea is that you use a free app to reach Rome guides and arrange a variety of experiences.  This allows people to taste Roman food just as the Romans eat it with a variety of different tours, workshops, classes and even the chance to share the family’s evening meal.

One example is the chance to dine with Emma and sample dishes that are a combination of her own creations and those passed down from her mother and grandmother.  The experience is a three-course meal with wine and is the chance to both sample the finest Roman food and also to learn a few tips to take home with you.

Another tour involves both a meal in the Old Tavern where the menu is a blend of Roman and Sicilian cuisines and all homemade with a tour around the immediate area including the Ancient Appian Way.  During the warmer months, you can eat on the patio and enjoy views of the city.

Classic Roman dishes

Suppli is an example of a Roman appetizer that is often served before pizza and is made from rice seasoned with meat sauce and mozzarella, coated in breadcrumbs then fried in hot oil.  The name of the dish comes from a French term and means ‘surprise’ and is served in restaurants but also from takeaways and is a popular snack while touring the sights.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara is a Roman classic that has made its way around the world and has taken on many forms.  One of the best things to do in Rome with locals is to sample traditional dishes in the restaurants around the city and it is almost guaranteed to be on every menu.

Carciofi (Italian for artichoke) is a favorite summer dish and there are two main ways it is prepared.  The ‘alla Romana’ style stuffs it with breadcrumbs, mint, garlic and parsley before braising in olive oil and water.  The other ‘alla giudia’ opens the petals of the artichoke and then deep fries it.

Roman pizza is a bit different from the kind you will find in other parts of Italy and is very thin with no lip to the crust.  Wood fired ovens are the best way to make these dishes so look for restaurants that serve theirs this way.

For a sweet treat, try Maritozzo, a sweet bread roll filled with whipped cream.  The bread is a special mixture that uses raisins, pine nuts and candied fruits making it similar to panettone but with a different consistency.

Food experiences

If you prefer fine dining, then there are also plenty of experiences to enjoy that involve the very best restaurants in Rome.  One example of the VIP Michelin Star Food Tour – this allows you to sample food at four different Michelin star restaurants around the city.  The tour includes transport from one location to another and includes a local guide to help you make the most of the experience.

Rome is famous for its wine as well as its food and it accompanies almost every meal.  A chance to go on a wine tasting experience with a local professional winemaker is a perfect chance to try the best of Roman wines and learn about the processes involved.  Not only does this create the chance to try the wines like a local but also learn about the part that wine plays in both Roman cuisine and culture.

Food tours

As well as the restaurants and home dining experiences, you can also combine sight sighting with food in a street food tour.  This allows you to see the best sights of the city while also sampling from a number of top quality street food vendors, offering everything from savory dishes to sweet treats.  These unique spots are the places that locals will visit to grab a snack between activities and let you take in the atmosphere of the city.

Unmissable experiences

There are plenty of tours around Rome that allow you to see the best of the sights of the city.  These are a few examples of tours that are perfect for after these tours, allowing food fans to experience the best of Roman cuisine as well as a taste of how Romans themselves serve their classic dishes.

Camping is an activity that many foodies avoid, because they are afraid that they are going to be eating like slobs during the whole trip. While this has been known to happen, it is NOT a necessary part of a camping trip. Forget hard boiled eggs and horribly cooked baked beans and iffy trail mixes;

The fact is that outdoor cooking, even on a portable cooker or similar, is one of the best ways to cook food, and if you have something nice like a BioLite stove, camping cooking can be even better in many ways than traditional cooking even in a highly endowed industrial kitchen.

Stoves and Burners  that are good for camping are plentiful in today’s market. You can start with something basic and functional (but high quality) like a nice little Highlander Portable Cooker, which performs perfectly in just about any natural setting powered with a butane gas cartridge. Those who doe not want to carry much might opt for the BioLite CookStove instead. However, the BioLite CookStove works after being charged. It doesn’t need any other fuel than the wood you can find around, but it needs to be charged beforehand to provide 30 hours of extremely efficient wood cooking.

But if you really want to be awesome and have an amazing camping experience, go all out and get yourself a BioLite BaseCamp. it combines eco-friendliness and convenience being able to use wood for energy with an amazing degree of efficiency and temperature control.

Actually, you may wind up buying a BaseCamp for camping and wind up using it regularly in your backyard for great outdoor cooking all the time as it creates energy while burning wood. BaseCamp cooks and creates energy at the same time and is big enough to offer cooking solution for groups.

The real genius of the BioLite technology lies in the fact that you can convert biomass not only to heat but also to electrical energy, so your fire can also power your music, your phones, cameras, whatever else you need to be powered. And the BaseCamp comes with a light on a gooseneck, so you’ll never bump into it no matter how dark the night is!

Another thing definitely worth mentioning is that this technology is incredibly efficient. The added 17 pounds and change to your backpack will be more than made up for when you go looking for decent wood for a fire and need a lot less of it. BioLite systems can boil a liter of water with as little as 46 grams of wood, for example.

So next time someone want to plan a camping trip, instead of saying you’re not interested, bring the appropriate equipment along and have a foodie experience and a camping experience all in one!