road trips & camping with diet restrictions

My husband brought up this year's vacation time last night. After discussing it for a bit we came up with a cross-country road trip to visit my sister, and a couple short camping trips with our church as well. But that leaves a few dietary nightmares for us to work out.

I know I'm not the only one dealing with GF here, but I can't remember who all has what diet issues... and for some reason when DH brought this up last night all I could think of was "what will we do for FOOD?!?" Eating out while driving cross-country is gonna be pretty tough now, (we can't afford most of the GF-friendly restaurants & wouldn't want to eat too often at the ones we can afford) and all I could think of for camping foods at the moment was hamburgers & hotdogs, granola bars & graham crackers - all of which are forbidden... or too costly to consider now.

We've got the following diet restrictions:
DH - none. (the lucky stinker!)
DS - Gluten-Free, sensitivities to artificial colors, and minor lactose intolerance.
DD - Prefers vegetarian, sensitivities to artificial colors, and minor lactose intolerance.
and me - Gluten-Free, allergies to artificial colors & sweeteners, lactose intolerance, and vegetarian.

I've been hunting the internet for possible foods, but I was wondering... has anyone whose been at this (either GF OR vegetarianism) longer than me found anything that keeps well in a car cooler and/or needs no refrigeration?!? We've got to pack everything we'll need into a 5-passenger compact car including the tent, all our camping "stuff" and the 4 of us - so space is precious.

So far my ideas are:
* Thai Kitchen noodle packets supplimented with veggies
* Foil-wrapped baked potatoes, cooked in the ashes
* GF pretzels, rice cakes & crackers, and homemade jerky (nuts for us girls)
* Using our dehydrator to dry fruits & veggies for homemade snacks and/or soup bases
* and things I can mix up with pasta, like canned tuna & veggies that can have meat or be meat-free.

I'm still hunting, but if anyone knows a direction to point me... I'd be ever so grateful!
love,
mom

 

Well, you could do basic sandwiches...just make GF bread (easier than it sounds, esp. with a bread machine). meats/substitutes, peanut butter, etc.

GF tortillas with avocado, tomato, onion, and a bit of cheese if you're not dairy restricted. Cubed raw tofu is a good snack.

I've made scrambled eggs on a campfire.

 

I went to www.celiac.com and got a wonderful gluten-free dining/restaraunt guide. It was invaluable when we went on vacation. Not just for the list of restaraunts for each city, but for the general good eating out advice. One diner we went to, hoping for the best, the cook understood gluten-free and took good care of us (okay, so except for the fact that I've recently developed a problem with seafood). We also shopped at grocery stores on the road, and made most of the same food we normally eat at home, and didn't have to bring a whole week and a half's worth of food with us. I made sure our hotels all had at least a refrigerator and a microwave, the one we stayed at the longest had a kitchen (and a washer/dryer since I also brought along our cloth diapers for the little one).

 

i'm not sure exactly what is involved in GF...i work at a restaurant where we have it on the menu, and the cooks all need to change their gloves and stuff when it's specified GF....but if you guys can eat corn on the cob, you can wrap it up in foil and cook it in ashes, just like a potato, and it's really super delicious.
good luck! sounds like a fun summer!!