Making Shavous in a non kosher kitchen...

spinkles

Thu, May 03 2012, 5:41 pm

BTDT. First of all, non-frum people don't realize how much time and work goes into making Yom Tov. They may get annoyed and think that you should be spending time hanging out with them. Or they may want to help out with the cooking, and you may be the type who prefers to cook alone without distractions. Or you may spend an hour chopping veggies for a soup, only to have them come by and stick a non-kosher spoon into the pot to stir it. What I'm saying is, tension is possible; misunderstandings are likely. These are your in-laws, which makes it stickier. I am getting stressed out just thinking about it! Honestly, the last time we went, we ordered a ton of pizzas and had cold pizza and fruit for the Shabbos seudos. Was a lot less stressful.

The actual cooking in a non-kosher kitchen isn't so hard, I like to put a couple of layers of aluminum foil down on the counters. Do they have a self-cleaning oven? Kashering the oven is a lot easier than double-wrapping, which sometimes (at least for me) didn't work--things pop open.

If I were in your situation, and felt like I needed to cook, then I would NOT plan on an ambitious menu. The goal would not be to show everyone what a great cook I am; it would be to get in and out of the kitchen as quickly as possible. I would bake several pans of chicken with different sauces, and for easy sides, make a.) couscous, b.) tossed salad, c.) chickpea salad (using canned chickpeas), d.) lentil salad, e. quinoa. Dessert would be fruit and ice cream (bought). I would skip the milchigs entirely. Let the focus be on spending time with your extended family, and being relaxed and happy. Just my opinion!

SacN

Fri, May 04 2012, 10:13 am

Yea--great idea. I'll cancel my 600$ worth of flights and tell my in laws no thank you for their hospitality. Even though we only make it once a year because of the costs and scheduling, this year, we can't come. Why? Because you don't acceptably observe the Jewish holidays, and it will be too complicated. If someone else wants to pay for a second set of flights, we'll come over our next non-holiday break from school/work---do we have any of those?

I'm sure they'll understand. And the cost? I haven't been saving up in order to afford this trip...600$ is easy to throw away.

On the plus side, my baby would appreciate having her crib, here at home.

Was your post actually meant to be helpful? If it was, you think we would do all this if we had a choice?

BeershevaBubby

Fri, May 04 2012, 10:22 am

SacN wrote:

Holy smokes, take a pill and chill out. Your attitude and sarcasm were completely unnecessary.

A million apologies for missing your post about you flying in.

And for the record, you wouldn't be canceling the flights, you'd be postponing them so it may not even cost you as much or anything.

Whatever. I have Shabbat prep to take care of.

sky

Fri, May 04 2012, 10:32 am

When baking chicken covered you can put rice and sweet potatoes in the pan with the chicken. This way its a meal in one. You can just add the same amount of water you always use for rice and pour duck sauce over the chicken. Wrap tightly and bake for 2 1/2 hours.

You can make macaroni and cheese the same as the lasagna, without boiling first.

I know you said you have too much luggage. But it may be worth it to cook and bake. Freeze and then pack all the food in one suitcase. It just sounds so much easier.
Or at least sautee and prepare as many light ingredients as possible at home. Pack in zip-loc bags and this way you can have more options.

kollel wife

Fri, May 04 2012, 10:36 am

Are you in the US?

I know here they have a disposable tin pot , like a 9X13 pan, but in a pot shape, (my friend used Pesachtime) when her baby was born leil Haseder.

I would only use that for soup, not for real cooking, but all your other cooking will need to be in disposable pans.

If you can bring one pot, medium to large size, that might help a lot, and you'd use it for all your cooking.
If you want to make lukshen kugel, there is a recipee I don't have, where you don't cook the noodles, but put water in with the lukshen, and brown sugar and other stuff.

Maybe someone has the recipee.

shanie5

Sat, May 05 2012, 11:55 pm

Most ovens today come with an automatic 12 hour shutoff. What are you going to do if the oven at the hotel has that?

Also, will you have maid service come in? Might they turn off the oven if you are not there and its empty when they walk in?

Very easy one pot meals can be made with putting veggies, squashes, potatoes, rice etc under the chicken while cooking.

Chana Miriam S

Mon, May 07 2012, 7:34 pm

we did pesach in a hotel with a kitchen. we kashered the cutlery, the one stainless pot and anything else that was kasherable including the countertops, sink (which was granite and stainless) as well as ran the self clean on the stove and covered the top with foil around the burners which we kashered. Used foil pans and bought a very cheap set of disposable pans and dollar store bowls for cooking as well as disposable plates etc.

we bought groceries at a local store and made food for yom tov, shabbat and chol hamoed. we bought deli and such to take to disney world etc.

I imagine doing shavuos and shabbat would be much easier. how nice that your inlaws are willing to put you up. they sound awesome!

sweetpotato

Mon, May 07 2012, 8:06 pm

For those of you who have made yomtov in a hotel with a kitchen: Did you leave the stove burners on for all of yomtov? Did the cleaning staff come turn them off? I imagine a hotel wouldn't be happy about the stove burners going for two or three days, unless they were used to such things?

ra_mom

Mon, May 07 2012, 8:58 pm

sweetpotato wrote:

Whenever we are in a hotel and need the room to stay a specific way for Shabbos that we know would be disrupted by room service, we keep the Do Not Disturb sign on and do not get room service for those days.

Etonnemoi

Mon, May 07 2012, 9:49 pm

[code]I love that idea. Unfortunately, I've used those things before and, in my experience, its difficult to grill anything other than hot dogs. Maybe there is a trick to it? [/quote]

There is. My hubby is a grill-maniac and he claims that a. the coal is usually dead b. it's only good enough for franks UNLESS you raise the grill to double as high (he finagles some sort of jury-rig) and add your own fresh coal. even so it's sorta not the greatest - how about buying (if finances allow) a sort of mid-level grill, a Portman (I think they're called, Port-something, if memory serves) that uses a small propane tank? They're more affordable, you can buy 'em at most hardware stores (near your in-laws), and they last forever and grill wonderfully. I don't know if you'd be able to keep it at your in-laws - relationship-wise, I.e., if anyone will use it for something unacceptably kosher or whatever - but if you can (or if your Rabbi says it's ok), then you can use it year-round every time you visit. It's easy to bring along in a car but on a plane it's a bit much.

Best of luck! I hope everything works out with no stress!!!

Mrs Bissli

Tue, May 08 2012, 8:11 am

If I may chip in to the brainstorming exercise (we've done self-catering holiday at non-kosher apartments), my first point is to include as many food as possible that doesn't need to be heated. For example, can you do cold soup like parve vichycoise or gazpacho or fruit soup? Esp if you're going to be in Israel, I suspect weather is more for cold soup than hot soup. Can you do lots of salads as the first course, and serve cold cuts for lunches? Cold sliced roast beef, poached chicken, chicken salad can also be good idea for meaty cold main course. Potato salad, pasta salad, rice salad--all good side dishes that don't need heating.

My next point is, esp as you're double-wrapping things, make things that can be served for both meaty and milky meals. You can get the whole or half salmon, get it filleted, sprinkle salt, chopped herbs, shmear with mayo if you want and double wrap to bake.

And finally, are there kosher take-away/delivery places? You can get store bought dessert, supplement with fresh fruits and sorbet.

As for logistics of heating food, I think you may need a small hot plate. You can probably put a blech on hotel kitchen hobs for Fri night, but most of these tend to be electric one with auto shut-off.

Another thought... do your in-laws have frum friends with kosher kitchens? If you're flying in with enough advance time, maybe they don't mind letting you use their kitchen. (But probably won't work if you're flying close to the chag...) Bon voyage and enjoy your stay.

Ay Jay Jay

Fri, May 11 2012, 8:23 pm

I'm not sure how it works with using the stove.. If you can use the stove, that would be good..

But with the oven you can make a variety of chickens, rice (I like to bake brown rice), lasagna, you can make meatballs, moroccan gefilte fish, fishes, if you can boil in the hotel, I made for tonight and tomorrow, schnitzel pieces cooked in cranberry sauce and blueberry sauce with garlic, make pastas (alfredo, alla vodka), chicken cacciatore is on the stove, salads are great, coleslaw..

I saw on here people have no bake cheesecakes. you can simply buy ice cream too.