Sanity-Saving Pesach Hacks in 3 Flavors

Penina's Pesach Hack: Cook Before You Clean

This hack comes courtesy of my friend Penina, who tells me she was inspired by Julie Hauser's famous crockpot method.

For people who are used to having a Pesach kitchen back home, the idea of having to clean every. last. thing. and turning over a kitchen before starting to cook can be very overwhelming.

So Penina's method goes like this: Create a mini Pesach kitchen in a few simple steps.

Living in Yerushalayim in a small apartment showed Penina that she'd have to think out of the box to make Pesach work for her and her family, without turning over their lives for weeks beforehand.

Here's her instructions:

Set up a folding table with a crockpot near a sink (hopefully you have a laundry sink or bathroom sink outside the bathroom.) There's no need to kasher the sink since you don't use it for chometz all year round. Instead, you can just line it with silver foil.

Then, set up a Pesach crockpot on your folding table. Penina keeps basic utensils like a peeler, knife, and a mixing bowl in a small drawer unit. When she's ready to start cooking, she puts the drawer unit under the folding table and pulls out utensils as needed.

A few weeks before Pesach, Penina's already set up her mini-Pesach kitchen and is filling her crockpot with Pesach food. You can make almost everything in a crockpot, she claims. She starts with chicken soup, compote, and meat. Each dish cooks all day and then she puts it away in her Pesach-lined freezer.

Using a Crock-Pot makes it easy, because she doesn't need to babysit the food all the time. There's nothing burning. She'll put up the onions, go feed her baby, then come back and add the meat when it's ready.

The best part is knowing that even if last-minute Pesach prep is hectic, she has a freezer full of Pesach food waiting. Plus, she can feed her family chometz up until bedikas chometz, which is when she turns over her regular kitchen, and welcomes a full Pesach kitchen in for the week.

Sara's Pesach Hack: Bring Bachurim on Board

"For me, the most overwhelming part of making Pesach is turning over the kitchen," Sara says, and I heartily agree with her on that.

One year, Sara was just after a baby and couldn't see herself doing the heavy scrubbing. Her husband hired two strong, energetic bachurim, on bein hazmanim and available for work. These two guys joined Sara's husband for a full day of heavy-duty scrubbing.

She stayed out of their way while they spent eight hours scrubbing, kashering, and lining. And then she stepped into her fully Pesachdig domain, and was able to start cooking with fresh energy.

By passing the ball on turning over, she saved her strength for when it was most needed.

Dvora's Pesach Hack: Party in the Park

This is my own hack, but it isn't really my idea.

I find that whenever I wonder, "How do the Israelis live in these little apartments?" All I need to do is just look at what they're doing. Usually, they've actually come up with a good solution!

So when I wondered what to do while my kitchen was in the between chometz and Pesach stage, I looked at what the Israelis were doing.

My Israeli neighbors send their kids to eat chometz in the park each day. The kids eat their pitas and then use wipes to clean themselves off. It's a party each day at suppertime!

There's no need to cram into a little pizza store to eat or pay for night after night of takeout. Instead, there's plenty of room in the park for the kids to run around once they're finished (or while!) eating, and it becomes a meal and an activity at the same time. The weather in Israel during this season is just pure delicious — it's something to take advantage of!

Sometimes, I'll send my kids to the park with my neighbor, so I get to stay home and work in an empty house while the kids are out having chometz and a great time.

As they say, when in Israel, do as the Israelis do!