Pesach Preparations
The kitchen sink and internal spring cleaning
Most of what I am sharing today you’ve probably heard before. But sometimes, we need reminders or ideas and encouragement, so here it goes.
First and most importantly.
Your home must be the place that brings you the most joy.
It’s our maternal goal to create a space we and our family love to be in.
We women are born creators.
It’s like working with a blank canvas; you will experience the emptiness, but that can change as your love is infused into the space and four walls.
Cleaning the house and emotional mess.
Don’t analyze the situation.
Just start somewhere.
It doesn’t matter where, because the challenge is not in the tidying up, it’s in the fact that we want to escape out of our own skin. Which is the real reason we are feeling the way we do.
Ask yourself what are your top three priorities this holiday?
For the kitchen
I prepare by making sure I make a list of what I am making.
Then I make a list of all the ingredients + supplies.
The one-gallon bags I use for making salad, prepping vegetables, or marinating meats and fish before cooking. It stores things well if you don’t have much room in the refrigerator.
Pre Prep.
- I make some ready-made sauces like a very concentrated soup, meat, or chicken bones — use the broth for flavoring anything (condensed/boiled down)
- Caramelize sugar and crack, and store.
- Pickle sauce with no vinegar (use oil, lemon, fresh garlic, pepper, salt). Pickle anything you want vegetables: carrot slices, cabbage, cucumber, purple onion (use to build).
- Knedlach: Replace the matzah meal with almond flour. Use almond spice mix on meat or chicken. Add warm flavors like cinnamon, pepper, salt, and sugar.
- Premix. Tea concentrate, sugar boil down steep tea, put into plastic bottles, concentrate. Great with Seltzer — jewish champagne.
Cooking process
Begin with cooking the things that take the longest first.
Use premixes in cooking or developing recipes.
Simplify and make sure there is room for you to enjoy yourself.
Ask yourself: What do I want to get out of this experience? Write it down, and every time you aren’t sure, come back to your answer.
Pause, take it in.
You’ve got this!
- Esther Levy
