Gluten free, lactose free and portable

October 15, 2012 3:43 PM

Can you suggest easy to make and carry gluten and lactose free recipes for my two day trip?

I'll be taking a 48 hour train journey and want to bring enough food for the whole trip with me. Fruit will be available on the trains but probably little else that I can eat.

Calorie dense and space light would be good as I will have a fair amount of luggage with me. Although I'll happily sacrifice some space for the sake of a bit of variety in my meals.

posted by roolya_boolya to food & drink (9 answers total)

Snack wise, jerky. Trader Joe's jerky is gluten free if I recall correctly -- check ingredients.

Will you be able to keep things cold? 48 hours is a long time even if you're going to have an insulated lunchbox with an ice pack. You might bring meals for the first day then plan to rely on non-perishables like jerky, nuts, fruit, and raw veggies during day two.

Likewise will you be able to warm things up? Assuming not, some things I wouldn't mind eating cold:

- Big salad with flavorful things on top like fresh bacon crumbles, sliced avocado (preserve with lemon juice, but it will keep fine if you make it the night before you leave), candied or plain nuts, plus veggies of your choice. Pack dressing and "wet" ingredients (e.g. sliced deli turkey, homemade chicken salad) separately.

- Depending on your tolerance for rice, larb is a pretty delicious meal that meets your specifications (personally I would make a bucket of larb, bring some crunchy veggies and lettuce leaves, and eat that all day, but I am strange)

- Less labor intensive is any kind of meat and lettuce wrap. You can do traditional 'American' style sandwiches with the bread straight up swapped out for lettuce, or prepare chopped meat with a seasoning profile of your choice (e.g. taco seasoning) and wrap it in lettuce.

- Hummus! Easy to make but also very easy to buy readymade hummus that is gluten and lactose free. Again, I am a weirdo and would eat this with a spoon, but you can bring carrot sticks/celery sticks/gf crackers/whatever makes you happy.

- A cold bean salad such as this. That particular recipe also has the really smart idea of using frozen corn kernels, so they'll mingle with the other ingredients and keep everything chilled for quite a while.

I would also recommend bringing a refillable water receptacle and, if you're a tea drinker, some tea bags and fixins (e.g. lemon slices). I'm always a bajillion times happier during a long trip if I can enjoy good tea.
posted by telegraph at 4:19 PM on October 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

My girlfriend suggests beef jerky, cornbread, almond butter (use your favorite recipe for the former two, buy the butter in a jar.) Also, anything dehydrated.

Can you bring a cooler? You'll be able to keep food for about twelve hours, so you can eat better during the first quarter of the trip and then just move on to snack-y foods.
posted by griphus at 4:20 PM on October 15, 2012

I happened to see this granola bar recipe today that sounded very good and I think meets your requirements.
posted by lakeroon at 5:47 PM on October 15, 2012

Not really a meal, but I really like the "Think Thin" brand bars. They are pretty small and calorie dense with lots of protein. Pair one with an apple or orange for breakfast and a snack, and you are golden! I like the dark chocolate and brownie crunch ones the best.
posted by shortyJBot at 5:49 PM on October 15, 2012

Oatmeal Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. They are SO delicious, easy to make, healthy, and gluten/lactose free. I usually swap the chocolate chips for raisins. I think some gluten-free folks don't accommodate oats in their diet but it works for me.
posted by saltwater at 5:55 PM on October 15, 2012 [1 favorite]

Trader Joe's is your friend. Trail mix is calorie and flavor dense. They sell Udi's breads/bagels and you can bring some peanut butter and jelly or apple butter/pumpkin butter. Precook a couple chicken legs and bring them well-chilled for lunch. Don't forget that you can repack. For example, you can repack a couple sandwiches worth of PB into a ziplock, if you don't want premade sandwiches or if you want to just snack on PB.
posted by plinth at 6:48 PM on October 15, 2012

I recommend Steve's Original, which offers various jerky-based snacks and meals, and also these fantastic grain-free granola bars that get me through many an unknown dietary outing. (They even have a granola-like "cereal" that can be had with almond milk for breakfast in just about any setting.)

Also, Veggie-Go's are a nice alternative to dried fruit that adds in some vegetables and yumminess. :)

For fresh food, I'd be tempted to bring some carrot sticks and peanut butter (the latter could be used with apples from the cafe car too), which is tasty and calorie-dense and keeps well. And maybe a couple of sandwiches that you make yourself at home on your gluten-free and otherwise pretested bread and so forth. At least for day 1.

Luckily, you probably won't be too active, so it may not matter that you don't have large multicourse meals set up. You can probably get some roasted almonds on the train too, in a pinch.
posted by acm at 7:51 AM on October 16, 2012

For day one I would suggest a focaccia. I recently made one with peppers, tomatoes, olives (and cheese) on top. It tasted great 24 hrs later (I had it with me on a trip in an air tight container). Using the same dough, you could make bread sticks for day two and bring some spread to dip in (maybe cashew-parsley, sweet potato spread or red beet hummus?)

How about dairy free soy pudding that does not require refrigeration?

If this is really 48 hrs on the train, I would make sure to pack a variety of savory, sweet and fresh snacks to mix it up a bit. For some reason I always get hungry once the train moves but hate to feel full from all the cookies, candy and soda...
Have a great trip!
posted by travelwithcats at 8:03 AM on October 16, 2012

Thank you for all of those great suggestions. Trader Joe's and the other prepared foods sound amazing but, as I should have mentioned, I'm in the EU so unfortunately I can't avail. I've never heard of larb before telegraph but I will definitely be checking it out.
posted by roolya_boolya at 4:30 PM on October 16, 2012