Help me get through "hell week" page

[Kaeferin]

At the end of May I'll be taking a week off from my usual desk job to do a week of theater and sing a children's opera. This is what theater folks know as "hell week" - 12 hour days with few and unpredictable breaks. Basically we start rehearsals at 9am and continue to 9.30pm. By the time I get home, due to the way the trains run, it'll be almost midnight. It's also physically exhausting, stressful work which requires a ridiculous amount of concentration - not a great time to binge on carbs and end up with adverse carb/sugar reactions.

So it looks like I'll probably be able to get a decent primal breakfast, but for the rest of the day I'm on packed "lunches" (read: lunch, snacks, and dinner) and/or restaurant food. I most likely will not have access to a fridge or a microwave.

Ideas for packed lunches/snacks/dinner I'm not going to be sick of by the end of the week?

[Ajax]

Make a bunch of coconut bread or coconut flour pancakes. Mark has recipes for those if you search for it. You can use the pancakes as wraps and fill them with cheese, veggies, cured meats. That won't need reheating and should be fine without refrigeration.

Wash and dry a bunch of salad greens at the beginnig of the week and chop up all your salad veggies. To make your packed lunch, pack the salad without dressing, dress right before eating. You can top the salad with hard boiled eggs or canned tuna or salmon for some protein. Mushrooms and/or leeks sauteed with some pinenuts and herbs make a great salad base as well. You can saute them a few days ahead of time and just add some tomatoes and avocado the day you'll eat it along wth a balsamic vinaigrette.

Whatever you do, if you don't have access to a fridge, don't bring a packed lunch/dinner with chicken or mayo. That way lies food poisoning.

For snacks: aged cheeses, nuts, fruits, hard-boiled eggs, avocados, cured meats... You can also make smoothies by blending coconut milk with fruit.

Good luck

ETA: Pork rinds for snacks!

[Dr. Bork Bork]

Fellow thespian here. I'm with you in spirit
You can do it!

[Kaeferin]

Make a bunch of coconut bread or coconut flour pancakes.

Hmm, I'll have to look into the coconut flour bread/pancakes thing. A couple of weeks ago I would have said that was impossible for lack of coconut flour, but I found a store here that stocks it, at a whopping EUR15 a bag Anyway, for a one-timer I can shell out that much, but if I recall correctly, isn't coconut flour still like 50% carbs? Probably the key is in combining it with the other stuff as a wrap, like you said. Thanks for the idea - that's definitely something I would not have come up with on my own.

I think I'm going to be spending the entire weekend before hell week prepping food (not to mention rehearsals then too, lol.

[Kaeferin]

Fellow thespian here. I'm with you in spirit
You can do it!

Well, thank you And may I just say how much I enjoy your chocolate-related posts?

[Ajax]

Hmm, I'll have to look into the coconut flour bread/pancakes thing. A couple of weeks ago I would have said that was impossible for lack of coconut flour, but I found a store here that stocks it, at a whopping EUR15 a bag Anyway, for a one-timer I can shell out that much, but if I recall correctly, isn't coconut flour still like 50% carbs? Probably the key is in combining it with the other stuff as a wrap, like you said. Thanks for the idea - that's definitely something I would not have come up with on my own.

I'm glad you could find coconut flour! A little goes a long way so I woud definitely invest in it. I found Mark's post on it:
Coconut Flour | Mark's Daily Apple

I leave out the honey and spices so that I can use them as savory wraps. The amount given makes about wraps using only 4 tablespoons of coconut flour. When you eat a pancake you are eating basically one egg + 1 tbsp coconut milk + 1 tbsp coconut flour. According to fitday each pancake has 9 grams fat, 5 grams carbs and 8 grams protein. (These are a staple for me so I had entered the recipe into fitday) Not high-carb at all

[jqbancroft]

Even though fruit is pretty sugary, it's great for not having refrigeration, as I'm not always huge on raw veggies. Also, as someone mentioned above, cured meats are great (that's what I do for flights). Additionally, most grocery stores carry tuna in packets instead of canned and pre seasoned too (like olive oil and herbs is one, I think). You'd have to check the ingredients to be sure, but they could make a great protein topping for salads that doesn't require a fridge.

Also, it may sounds weird but one of my favorite raw veggie snacks is carrots with cheddar cheese. They're great because you get some carbs, some fat, and some protein in every bite

Good luck!

[runnergal]

If you dont LOVE coconut, skip the flour at that price. I find coconut flour baked goods somewhere between inedible and disgusting. If it wouldnt cost more to ship it to you than it was worth I'd send you the rest of my never to be used again bag.

Freeze pre cut portions of cooked meats. In the morning put them in your salad. By lunch time the meat will be thawed but still cold and it will keep your salad cold and crisp.

Hardboil a bunch of eggs at the beginning of the week.

Roasted veggies are good cold too when you get tired of lettuce salads. I like cold roasted veggies with cold roasted meat.

[Kaeferin]

Ajax - thanks for searching that out for me, great info. I'll look into it.

jqbancroft - well, I have no problems with the raw veggies I've also never been much of a fruit person, so on that front I don't really have too many problems. Carrots and cheese? Yum! Tuna I think I'd have to dress myself - I can get it canned in plain olive oil, but that's not much fun. The other varieties with veg and stuff come with so many chemicals that <shudder>

runnergal - I'm good with coconut, might be worth a one-time splurge on the flour front to see what I can do with in. Also, thanks for the freezing / thawing suggestion, hadn't thought of that Roasted veggies are a no-go because I don't have an oven, but if I'm ever staying over at my other place and putting together a packed lunch, I'll try them out. What do you use? Peppers / zucchini / egg plant? Thanks for any pointers.

You guys are great, I knew you'd come up with something

[OperaDivaMom]

I pack my lunches daily for work, and one thing is absolutely indispensable: a good, wide mouth thermos. If you have a thermos, you can heat some homemade soup (I have bags and bags of homemade broth in the freezer at any given time, as well as chunks of chicken or beef) quickly on the stove, just throw in some veggies (fresh chopped or frozen, depending on how much time you can devote to prep), add spices, go about your breakfast and getting ready to go, and by the time you're ready it's hot and ready to go in the thermos. Fantastically filling, super portable, and yummy!