Turning the kitchen, step by step

I've never done this before. Well I did once when we were in NY for 6 months, and my dh was home to take the kids out and we never had to eat in the apartment. We also had nothing, a self cleaning oven, and knew we weren't staying. So I pretty much closed everything up, self cleaned the oven & racks, and was done with it.

I asked the basics of kashering and I have a LOR I can check with. I'm more interested in what your tachlis plan is. Do you close off the kitchen all at once and bring it back Pesach? Do you cook kitniot before Pesach to serve on non Pesach plates or paper? How do you handle the time between when the kitchen is clean and when you can ksaher (if you use the mass kashering and have to wait for them).

I know we are making Shabbos chamatz. I don't have to cook for Seder or Shabbos Chol HaMoid. I'm trying to figure out a practical plan for making the kitchen Pesach. I don't want to leave too much for too late, but I don't want to start so early I am stuck eating sandwhiches on the merpesit for 2 weeks.

Help please Smile

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set up an area somewhere else in the house (garden if its nice weather) where you can make sandwiches and eat cereal. (for your peace of mind use cereal that is kitniyos or klp and pita bread because it is less crumby) supper can be kosher le pesach or if you are leaving your oven unkashered cook chicken and rice in foil dishes, becasue anything real will have to be washed up in the bathroom sink!

I set up a ring in the utility room so I can make pasta for the kids.

if you are not making seder motzei shabbos is plenty of time to turn over everything.

Last edited by TzenaRena on Sun, Mar 22 2009, 9:20 am; edited 1 time in total

Posted: Sun, Mar 22 2009, 9:23 am Post subject:

OK, here's how I do it - Israeli apartment style!

First I clean in the kitchen all the things I don't need for actual cooking - cupboards, shelves etc. I empty the bottom cupboards under the shayish and give them a good clean, but then I have to leave them empty. Plates, pans etc - some I put back into the clean cupboards, and others I pack into boxes. I use disposables, and just leave out the bare minimum for cooking - two or three pans, a sharp vegetable knife and cutting board etc. The food gets put into boxes according to categories - chometz and non-chometz.

Now we should be about a week+ before Pesach.

I clean fridge and freezer (this takes about half a day with two people). I put down paper/ foil and make sure if there's any crummy chometz (I try not to put such things at all) they are very well wrapped in a couple of bags.

I take the whole stove out of the kitchen and leave it for my husband in the hall Wink

Now I clean countertops (we wait 24 hours after cleaning for kashering), sinks etc.

This stage lasts about 2 days and we order pizza/ falafel, eat sandwiches and foods I cooked before like hardboiled eggs etc in the lounge. We keep the chometz kettle there too.

Last stage is kashering the counters and sinks. The water leaks into the bottom cupboards, so then I can dry them out and line them. I clean table, chairs, and floor.

Now I have a KLP kitchen and a lounge full of chometz. This should be 3-4 days before Pesach. I start cooking, and anything I want to serve, I bring on disposables from the kitchen to the lounge. We keep bread etc in the lounge. I still keep things like chummus in the fridge.

At some point I do the lounge and the last of the chometz moves to the mirpesset.
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Posted: Mon, Mar 23 2009, 5:15 am Post subject:

Thanks this was exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. Any more? I am thinking this is feeling "too easy" and I'm going to be in a mad rush Erev Pesach.

Posted: Mon, Mar 23 2009, 8:47 am Post subject:

Posted: Mon, Mar 23 2009, 9:53 am Post subject:

Posted: Mon, Mar 23 2009, 9:57 am Post subject:

Posted: Mon, Mar 23 2009, 11:13 am Post subject:

Wow youy ladies are so organized.
I basically turn over the kitchen 24 hours before Pesach, that's it. Before that though I have cleaned the stove and the oven (self clean) and fridge and freezer, and taken everything out of the cupboards, spring cleaning style and wiped them down. I don't bother cleaning the toaster oven, it's impossible, I sell it. I clean the micro and let it sit 24 hours and then kasher.

Everything else gets covered so I don't have to kasher or wait 24 hours. The only problem are glasses, I love our chometz drinking glasses and want to use them on Pesach as well even though we have pesach glasses, so I have to remember four days in advance to put in the bucket with water that gets changed daily until the day before Pesach when they are ok.

We don't have a Pesach kitchen, a pesach stove, a pesach fridge, nothing. So I know it can be done last minute. and it is.

When the kids were small my parents would take them out once a year to eat hamburgers or pizza or something on leyl bedikas chometz while I cooked and turned the kitchen over. I would then go over to my parents and do theirs as well.

I don't clean with a toothbrush. Or as my dh says, "we say Kol Chamiro" with tremendous kavonno in this house...
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Since the kitchen is our living/dining/study/you name it room and the rest of our fantastic house are the kids' and the parents' room I'm hoping for some good weather the week before pesach. The bedrooms will be dome before shabbat hagadol, and so will the books in the main room and the "shida" with all the tablecloths. we'll eat in reg,. plates but use disposables for serving dishes. I'm hoping that be Sunday we'll be done with leftovers and Mon. morning will probably be the last day with our bread maker. Monday will be turning over. (We're home and cooking for the seder). I do hope I'll get the cabinets done before since I don't need them all on pesach.... but this will only happen if I get my act together and get off this website for a week or two! Laughing

Platinum Member Joined: Jan 01 2006 Posts: 48152

We do the kitchen as quickly as possible so we don't starve to death. There is no way that dh would let anything be done part way.

That said, the fridge and stove take a day by themselves. We get takeout food and eat it on the porch or elsewhere.

for those of you who are saying that cleaning your fridge and oven take all day, are your fridge and oven very large or something? I just can not fathem why it would take all day. I think that my oven will take about two hours and my fridge maybe two hours. anyone else?

as for turning my kitchen over, I probably will not turn it over untill after shabbat hagadol as well. we are not even going to be home for the seder so I will make some things to have in the home when we get home from relatives, but I dont have to PREPARE Smile

for the seder, so its much less.
once the kitchen is turned over, we put chad paami plates and silverware on the dinning room table and that is our chametz spot and the bathroom is where any dishes that are still left will be washed.

I lOVE all of you!!
I think the whole turning-over-the-kitchen-for-pesach is not that big a deal.... Just get down and dirty and in several hours it CAN be done.

My problem is my self cleaning oven has broken during the self clean cycle 7 times in 13 years. It takes 2 - 3 weeks to get the parts replaced and repaired so we have had NO oven for several Pesachs. In the past few years we have been self cleaning the oven earlier and earlier to be certain we will have it up and running and KASHERED before pesach. DH ran the self clean mode after shabbos so NOW our oven is peisachdik. Not that big deal, I will cook in foil pans and use KLP stuff on the chicken.
That should be the worst 'thing' I ever have to deal with!
Thanks everyone for making me feel relaxed and happy while dealing with Pesach prep!
Have a super day!
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