MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- What can you do when the hurricane is long gone but the power is still out, and a glance into the pantry reveals paltry pickings: tins of tuna, a jar of olives, a can of green beans, some oil and vinegar?
Some desperate souls, frustrated by the lack of refrigerated food or air conditioning, would pick at the tuna, or snack on the olives. Others might waste precious gasoline by driving on hazardous roads in search of more substantial eats.
Daphne Nikolopoulos makes Salade Nicoise, a recipe from her book "The Storm Gourmet: A Guide to Creating Extraordinary Meals Without Electricity" (Pineapple Press, 2005, $9.95 paperback).
Another book, "Apocalypse Chow: How to Eat Well When the Power Goes Out" (Robertson, 2005, $12.95 paperback) by Jon Robertson, with Robin Robertson, stretches the same concept to any post-disaster environment, such as blackouts or tornadoes.
Both books take on the challenge of preparing multi-ingredient meals in a hurricane's aftermath or similar predicament -- beyond just opening a can and digging in.
"This book isn't for people who lost everything," Jon Robertson said. "It's for the tens of thousands in the surrounding areas who sometimes go weeks without power."
Like thousands of other Floridians, Nikolopoulos struggled to find a satisfying meal after losing electricity during the stressful 2004 hurricane season. Many were unprepared, having failed to stock pantries and cupboards ahead of four hurricanes that year, and for Dennis, Katrina and Wilma in 2005.
The result was serpentine lines for meals and water at government distribution sites, traffic jams at fast-food takeout windows and hours-long waits at the few restaurants or pizza parlors that were able to open.
"I had gone to the store and bought ... canned baked beans and tuna, and peanut butter and potato chips," said Nikolopoulos, whose Palm Beach, Florida, home was without power for two weeks after Hurricane Frances in 2004.
"After a few days, those lose their luster. That's when I started to raid the pantry."
She made her version of the classic Nicoise, adding canned potatoes, artichokes and capers to the tuna, beans and olives. It tasted good, and she built a cookbook around the idea that one doesn't need electricity to make food with a gourmet touch.
With more than 60 recipes, "The Storm Gourmet" includes tips for dealing with water supplies and a list of food items, both basic and more sophisticated, to build a fully stocked pantry.
Nikolopoulos makes the cold soup, vichyssoise, by combining cream of potato soup, chicken broth, white pepper and minced onions, and shaking them up. The book also has recipes for peanutty chicken over puffed rice, gazpacho martinis and Key lime pie, all made without heat with ingredients purchased from her lists.
Such fare is a long way from canned soup or pork and beans eaten cold or heated by Sterno.
"It's designed to be the Dinty Moore beef stew alternative," she said.
Nikolopoulos includes dishes using a product called Instant Pasta, which reconstitutes in room-temperature water. However, it's only offered by one company, by mail order, making it difficult to get quickly. Some items, such as orange-blossom water or tamarind paste, seem a little too luxurious for the average family that needs to buy diapers, formula, medicine or other necessities.
But most ingredients in the shopping lists are affordable and accessible, Nikolopoulos said.
The recipes are "designed for the person who likes to eat well and doesn't necessarily want to give that up during a power outage," she said.
Robertson, with the help of his wife Robin, assembled anecdotes for "Apocalypse Chow" to give real examples of how to make do without electricity.
Robertson offers recipes meant to be used with a heat source. The book recommends a single burner stove powered by butane canisters, and points out that camping stoves and grills are useful, too.
The Robertsons, who live in Virginia Beach, Virginia, came up with what they call the Five-Day Wine Box, named for the size of carton used. This is a reserve food supply which would cost about $50 to put together, to use after all the "fridge fodder" is gone. Just fill up the box with the products listed in the book before the hurricane season, hide it in the closet and bring it out when needed.
The box would have all the ingredients for recipes from the book such as "high-road lo mein," "curry in a hurry," and fire-roasted blueberry cobbler -- Jon Robertson's favorite.
The books focus on nutritious meals, which experts say are often overlooked after a storm.
Lisa Dorfman, a registered dietitian who lived through 1992's Hurricane Andrew, said the ability to deal with post-disaster stress and trauma could be helped by nutrition and exercise.
For people dealing with stress, proper nutrition could induce relaxation and calmness, and increase energy levels to help cope with adversity, she explained. Fortified cereals, dried fruit and sports nutrition bars are options which provide nutrition and energy, she said.
"It's typical for people who are under stress ... you tend to indulge and hence the stress in amplified by not eating well," she said.
She emphasized the importance of proper hydration -- through water or low-sugar sports drinks -- during the stress and hard work that come with storm recovery.
Without proper hydration, "you can't physically tackle stress and overcome a hurricane or the ability to muster up the energy that's needed to recover," said Dorfman, whose book, "The Anti-Stress Diet," is scheduled for publication in 2007.
Bruce Ozga, dean of culinary education at Johnson & Wales University in North Miami, Florida, said the two cookbooks may seem like niche products, designed for people who are used to eating more upscale foods.
He recommended that people look toward comfort foods, whatever their ethnic background.
"The comfort foods kind of reduce the stress level and give you some normalcy in the tough times," Ozga said. "Living day-to-day without electricity, you live looking forward to your next meal."
While approaches to post-hurricane eating differ, Robertson pointed out one benefit that could be universal: Eating is a good way to pass time as families wait for a sense of normalcy, or neighbors get together to share food.
"Another hardship of this type of existence is that you're bored," Robertson said. "You find you need people, and you find people need you. It changes your attitude about yourself."