Gluten free box lunches for adults

[Suz D]

We've become friends with a couple from California and they are making a feature film about a man who is dealing with his aging Grandmother and her battle with Alzheimer's disease. They are on a super tight budget after raising something over 1/2 of what they need for the movie. The movie is being filmed here in West Virginia and we're trying to brainstorm ways to help them. They are traveling to Pittsburgh this weekend for some shots and will be coming through here on their way back to the main filming site.

They do not want to stop for lunch, so I offered to make them boxed lunches. That was before I remembered the gluten allergy. I'm wanting something nice partly because they are probably used to nicer food on the set, and partly because they are such great people. The catch is that they want something they can eat in the car so things like nachos aren't going to work. Any ideas for me? I was thinking that I might do a snack type thing with cheese sticks, hard boiled eggs, fruit, yogurt, corm chips. Would that be dumb? What would I do for dessert?

I'm not on a super tight budget and only need to feed 8 people.

On a fun side note...my family is going to appear as extras in the film. It's called Angel's Perch if anyone wants to Google it and read about the beautiful story.

Also if anyone has a creative idea how to get an actor from Dulles to Cass WV that won't break the bank, I'm interested in hearing it. I found a limo service, but it was $500.00 (which I think is reasonable, but way out of their budget.

 

[3prettyprincesses]

What a sweet idea!

I think the food you mentioned so far sounds great, will it be in a cooler type pack though? Yogurt, eggs and cheese would need to be cold. As far as dessert goes, how about a nice bar of chocolate with some nuts to go with it? I know that Enjoy Life has GF chocolate bars that taste better than Hershey's. Maybe some GF cookies? Again, Enjoy Life makes GF ones.

The movie sounds really interesting too.

 

[chris31997]

You can freeze the tube yougurts to act as ice packets. You can also freeze water bottles to do the samething, if you open them to let out some water, just let them know.

As for meals, you can look for rice noodles and make those up. You can make lumpia with rice wrappers instead of regular lumpia wrappers(might require some searching though), look into the baked good seaction for any of the items that say "glutenfree" like muffins and than add some berries to it. You can do a search for "raw" recipes. A friend has one that uses apple sauce and a few other ingriedents and sets up in the fridge, brownies. My sister uses also alot of raw recipes and coconut flour, no gluten.

Sorry I can not give you more detail. When my friend and sis start to talk about, I But really, they don't have any issues just have to cook everything from scratch. But I have learned to look for gluten where I did not expect to see it. If you buy anything for them prepared, make sure there is no wheat or it says gluten free in it.

 

[disney fan4]

I like to make flourless cakes or meringues. Inexpensive and nobody would ever guess they were gluten free.

 

[crisi]

I like lettuce wraps. Put sandwich fixings in lettuce and wrap it up (Jimmy Johns does a good one if you need to see it).

There are lots of gluten free options, but they don't necessarily tend to be great box lunch options - sushi tends to be GF (soy sauce isn't). Lots of ethnic foods are. But a cold rice dish usually isn't very good, so such things don't tend to be good for a box lunch.

 

[Nicolepa]

For dessert my daughters favorite recipe is PB cookies. 1 cup PB, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, double/triple as necessary.

For meals, salads are always good (just check the dressing). Add some cooked chicken on top and you have a meal. Almonds are also good for munching on. Trader Joes has rice tortillas. You can use them to make sandwich rolls. Most of the Kettle Chips are Gluten Free. Udi's brand is the best for breads, muffins and such.

 

[Kathi OD]

check to see if your grocery store sells Udi's gluten free breads. they aer usually in the freezer section. the loaves are much smaller than a regular loaf of bread (and quite a bit more expensive, but since it's just this once). and you can make a traditional box lunch of sandwiches (that is if your local store sells gluten free deli products (most, if not all, Boar's Head deli products are GF).

I like lettuce wraps. Put sandwich fixings in lettuce and wrap it up (Jimmy Johns does a good one if you need to see it).

There are lots of gluten free options, but they don't necessarily tend to be great box lunch options - sushi tends to be GF (soy sauce isn't). Lots of ethnic foods are. But a cold rice dish usually isn't very good, so such things don't tend to be good for a box lunch.

Crisi...just wanted to let you know...Kikkoman does sell a GF soy sauce.

 

[SplashMo]

Whole Foods has a gluten free section. You could get gluten free white rice, gluten free white noodles or gluten free corn tortillas. I would pass on the gluten free bread and buns etc...

I eat gluten free and on a road trip I eat:

Shrimp Pre-cooked
hard Boiled Eggs
Salads. However dressing on the side and gluten free...
Tuna Fish salad
Egg Salad
Would love crab and Salmon
Fruit
Gluten free chocolate (Whole foods.) Just check the label as many have wheat.
Tri-tip salad
Veggies
My very favorite thing eating out is a Seafood salad...

 

[sheboz]

Betty crocker has great gluten free boxed cake mixes. How about a treat as well. Banana bread(white cake mix) or chocolate(devil food cake mix)
Look on there website for recipes. Wrap them individually so they can think of you when they have a snack attack.

 

[ShortStuff]

I think it's awesome that you are doing this for your friends!! We thought my Grandson had celiac disease, turns out he was allergic to oats, peas, tuna and peanuts. We tried these for him when we were gluten free:

Gluten Free Sugar Cookies
Recipe Type: DessertAuthor: Jessica FeelyPrep time: 25 mins Cook time: 13 mins Total time: 38 mins Serves: 12-15
These yummy cookies are sure to please the gluten free crowd!
Ingredients
1 cup super fine white rice flour (or sweet rice flour)
1/2 cup potato starch (not potato flour)
1 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt (or 1/2 if you prefer a bit less salt)
1 cup sugar
1 cup organic spectrum shortening (or substitute 1 cup soft room temp butter)
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
extra potato starch for rolling out dough
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pull out 1-2 cookie sheets wrapped in foil or parchment.
In small bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, xanthan gum, and salt. Set aside.
In kitchen aid mixer bowl, cream sugar and shortening. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients a little at a time until combined. The dough will be soft.
On a bread board sprinkled with potato starch, take half the dough with your hands and flatten it and roll it out to 1/4 inch thickness. Using plastic wrap over the dough while using a rolling pin will help with sticking.
Cut cookies in desired shapes and place on cookie sheet.
You can re-roll the scraps and make more cookies until the dough is gone.
Bake for exactly 13 minutes.
Remove the pan immediately from the oven and let cookies cool on pan, then remove to wire rack.
Enjoy!
Notes
Watch the timer, these cookies can dry out very fast if accidentally left even a few minutes in too long!

Remember all ovens are different, so you may have to adjust the cooking time between 12-14 minutes. I found that in my old oven 12 minutes was perfect, but in our current oven 13 minutes is better.


From this site:

http://www.glutenfreeconfessions.com/

She has a lot of amazing recipes!! :

 

[Suz D]

Thank you to everyone who has replied so far. I love most of the suggestions, but I really have to focus on stuff that can be eaten in a car while they are driving. Salads would probably be okay for everyone but the drivers, but I think I probably need to stay away from anything that needs to be eaten with silverware just for ease of travel. I will be able to put the box lunches in a cooler which we can pick up when we visit the set in a few weeks.

Please feel free to continue offering suggestions. I think that this could be a helpful thread for more than just our situation.

 

[crisi]

check to see if your grocery store sells Udi's gluten free breads. they aer usually in the freezer section. the loaves are much smaller than a regular loaf of bread (and quite a bit more expensive, but since it's just this once). and you can make a traditional box lunch of sandwiches (that is if your local store sells gluten free deli products (most, if not all, Boar's Head deli products are GF).



Crisi...just wanted to let you know...Kikkoman does sell a GF soy sauce.

Yeah, I know. It really isn't worth buying if you aren't GF though, and most people don't know it has gluten in it.

(There are several brands, and I like tamari better which is traditionally GF).

 

[Kathi OD]

Yeah, I know. It really isn't worth buying if you aren't GF though, and most people don't know it has gluten in it.

(There are several brands, and I like tamari better which is traditionally GF).

 

[Sagginit]

celiac in the house, woot woot

first off since no one has mentioned it, if you do not understand cross contamination then read up on it. you can give them all the GF food in the world but if you get crumbs on it the forget it (my brother teases me all the time about my "crumb complex").

i would try to find some GF bread to make sandwiches for them since they may need to eat while driving. hormel natural choices makes GF prepackaged lunchmeat and i would say this is the most widely available GF lunchmeat i have found. i will not eat anything sliced at the deli for fear of contamination. you could also make one or two pb & j sandwiches (make sure the containers are new so there are no crumbs from previous sandwiches). i would suggest if you don't know their taste GF bread is usually small so you could cut in half and they could eat one or two mini ones.

cut up veggies and GF dip is healthy as is fresh fruit (such as apple slices, bananas, or grapes - foods that don't drip are good while driving). i would include some chips (frito lays is now certified GF and cape cod ships are GF too). also i like string cheese and nuts for extra protein to keep me filled longer (just read the label on the nuts and avoid flavored ones, believe it or not some nuts may have gluten). also if you don't do PB & J sandwhiches in the asian sections of many foodstores they have GF rice crackers. i love the sesame flavored ones to make PB crackers.

for treats i suggest the PB cookies above or betty crocker as GF baking from scratch can be complex. also rice crispys now comes in a GF variety so you could make some of those or chex does come GF too so they have recipes for GF chex mix.

when i doubt i say stick to either packaged GF foods or unprocessed whole foods as gluten content can be murky for those not familiar with what to look for.

oh and i use San J organic tamari...... way better than any soy sauce :

 

[Sagginit]

oh and found this: http://www.hormel.com/updates/coupons/

 

[Suz D]

Thanks everyone! I am definitely going to be making the box lunches, but she's going to pick up Chipotle for the two with allergies so it's just easy box lunches for 5 people. Probably do chicken salad on croissants with lots of finger food on the side. I was up for the challenge, but am somewhat relieved that I won't have to be like a fish out of water.

 

[bookgirl]

Thank you to everyone who has replied so far. I love most of the suggestions, but I really have to focus on stuff that can be eaten in a car while they are driving. Salads would probably be okay for everyone but the drivers, but I think I probably need to stay away from anything that needs to be eaten with silverware just for ease of travel. I will be able to put the box lunches in a cooler which we can pick up when we visit the set in a few weeks.

Please feel free to continue offering suggestions. I think that this could be a helpful thread for more than just our situation.

You could do pinwheels.

Take a slice of deli meat and put spreadable cheese on it (cream cheese, cheese wiz, etc) then add chopped olives or pickles. you can also add shredded lettuce or spinache. roll them up slice like sushi. fun and easy to eat and very tasty.

also there are turkey/beef sticks (like slim jims)
rice crackers
fresh fruit
popchips
trail mix made with oats if they can tolerate them
burritos made with corn or flax tortillas
popcorn (carmel for dessert)
jello squares (personally can't stand them but for some reason most people do love jello)
peanut butter on celery with raisins (ants on a log)

all I can think of at the moment but we do road trips and we love squirt cheese and crackers, but I don't know if squirt cheese is gluten free.

 

[Minnie]

Thanks everyone! I am definitely going to be making the box lunches, but she's going to pick up Chipotle for the two with allergies so it's just easy box lunches for 5 people. Probably do chicken salad on croissants with lots of finger food on the side. I was up for the challenge, but am somewhat relieved that I won't have to be like a fish out of water.

This is very good news as cross contamination can be very difficult even for those who deal with it on a daily basis. You could always add a box of gluten free cookies or even a bag of chips (many are GF - plain Lays for example) would be at the regular store. It was very nice of you to consider those with allergies