I need ideas for meals for next week. I'm turning my kitchen over on Tuesday night so I will need meals and snack ideas for Wed-Thurs. Somehow my brain is frozen and I'm unable to sort this out on my own. It may or may not be raining torrents so picnicking on the back deck *sounds* good, but may not be a reality. How do all of you handle this? Oh, and there are no restaurants here.

Just went to Whole Foods and got a ton of gluten free cereals and snacks. Dinner will probably be something like fish or chicken and potatoes.

Meals - regular menus that happen to be pesachdik, like shepherds pie and salad, or baked potatoes with tuna or cheese topping. But, if it's difficult/pricey for you to use the food that has an actual pesachdik hechsher, cook the stuff you need to in pesach pots/oven (eg baked potatoes) and have a place in the house where you can prepare/eat the not-chametz, not-pesach-hechshered food. If you have a table you can put in another area, you can open cans of tuna and mix with regular mayo that you keep well-labelled and wrapped in the fridge, and prepare in disposable goods. Eat of paper plates, wash your can opener etc in the bathroom or laundry-room sink.
For snacks - fruit will be my mainstay, but I will probably get some kitniyos snacks for eating in a separate area, if the weather isn't good for eating outside.

I thought of some other ideas - it's coming back to me what we've done in the past!
Snacks:
Yogurts - can be chametzdik if kept separate in fridge, eat with disposable spoons.
Boiled eggs (can eat with veggie sticks - baby carrots are good for those who can chew them, because they need no preparation, ditto for cherry tomatoes for those you don't have to worry about choking).
For lunch/supper: Eggs - my dad has a recipe that uses onions and potatoes to make a kind of spanish omelette. You saute the onoins, potatoes and whatever other hard veg you are using (eg carrots - my addition, not his!). When they are soft, add scrambled egg mixture (eggs, and milk or water if you want, with herbs/salt/pepper to taste, or a squirt of ketchup!). Pour over veggies and cook until done - it works best if covered, but if I don't have a lid for the right sized frying pan, I've done it without, it just takes longer.
Another tip - prepare any snacks that need cutting, etc, at the beginning of the day, so you don't have to interrupt to deal with it when the kids get hungry. I have to admit to seeing the wisdom of this idea, and using it occasionally, but often being too disorganized or rushed in the mornings to do it. You can also do "packed lunches" as if you were going out for the day, and then let the kids select from there for themselves. If you have insulated bags/cool boxes, that keeps them out of the kitchen, too!

We eat a lot of kitniyot like rice and lentils. My favorite soups are all kosher for Pesach-- l'ochlei kitniyot bilvad.

And you can get hummus in any supermarket here.

We're turning our kitchen over on Sunday. Next week shall be "The Week of Kitniyos"™.

I'm planning lots of lentils, chana masala, etc...stuff that will not cause chametz issues, but also we won't be able to eat during Pesach. Then, we'll just finally pack up all those dishes right before Pesach and put away the kitnyos. (Step away from the chickpeas...just step away.)

We use one set of dishes for all Pesach food, including Kitniyot. (I mean, separate for meat and dairy, but we cook kitniyot in our Pesach pots before chag, and this year, for shabbat after chag. We just check all the kitniyot before Pesach).

And in the US, we would never do this. It's just a side effect of living in Israel.

About dishes, here's a quote from R' Shmuel Weiss, a community rabbi with many years of experience. I thought it was really important and well-stated:

"ASK THE RABBI

Question: WHAT IS THE STATUS OF KITNIOT, NON-“GEBROCHTS” & NON-GLATT DISHES & UTENSILS?

Answer: Let’s clear up a piece of misinformation & incorrect Halacha that, chas v’shalom, threatens to be taken as accurate.
Only non-kosher items can render dishes, silverware, pots, pans, etc treif! That which is kosher cannot adversely affect any
keylim. So if someone uses their dishes on Pesach for kitniyot (e.g. rice, corn) or for gebrochts (e.g. knaidlach) then someone
who does not eat kitniyot or gebrochts may use those same dishes or pots for non-kitniyot, non-gebrochts meals.
This is particularly important for “mixed” marriages of Sefradim/Ashkenazim who wish to eat at their in-laws’ home on Pesach.

The same is true for kosher, non-glatt meat; it does not affect the utensils in any way for those who eat only glatt meat. One must be very careful not to misquote this Halacha and "invent" a stricture that does not exist in Judaism; Chazal say that misleading someone Halachically is an extremely grave sin.
"

Of course, that refers to kosher le-Pessach kitniyot. Not sure if you can get a hechser in the U.S.

Personally, I have a policy of not turning over the kitchen until the morning of Bedikat Chametz. I don't see the point of extending Pesach to 2 weeks.

I'm planning to use the grill next week.

What about dried beans/lentils? Since they don't need a hechsher normally, would they need for Pesach? And does the ruling that Pesach pots that have had kitniyos cooked in them are still KLP for Ashkenazim only apply to EY or to elsewhere as well?

We are turning over so early because I have a house full of unpredictable little kids

Let me ask this. In the past, I wipe down all the surfaces in my kitchen. If there is no visible chometz on my cabinets (i.e. a drip of pancake batter or something), do I need to bother with this? I'm trying to figure out why turning my kitchen over takes me so darn long.

I can't do it during the day so that leaves Wed night. But I'd like to stock the fridge and upstairs freezer on Wed and not have to worry. I can't shop Thursday as we take care of a friend's son all day and don't have enough carseats to take him along shopping...so that leaves Tuesday night after the kids go to bed. It takes me like 5 hrs and I can't figure out why. Am I doing something I don't need to do? The rest of the house gets a dust and a thorough vacuum and I will do that Wed or Thurs.

Yeah, it takes 5 hours. At least.

But you're only talking about the cabinets that you're using on Pessach? I'm pretty stingy, and only prepare the shelves and drawers that I really need.

Even by my "just make it kosher" standards, anything that comes in contact with food needs to be wiped down and then covered.

The rest of the house, "Kol Chamira ve'Chamiya", but the kitchen - that's serious.

I well recall staying up late into the night turning over the kitchen...

The fridge alone takes four (4) hours. The oven... I shudder at the thought.

I'm outsourcing the kitchen again this year to sturdy Yeshiva boys. Do you have sturdy Yeshiva boys in your area? I highly recommend them. They know the halacha, and they know why it's important, and if you get good ones and supply them with cleaning materials, they can usually think for themselves (no promises on that count, though. I've always had good experiences, but a friend once got a dud).

So *they* can wipe down all the cabinets. You'll still need to direct, though. We also bleach the floor, and I have to leave the house for that or I get all sorts of dizzy.

. Nope, no sturdy yeshiva boys here. My fridge isn't that bad, actually - it wipes very easily and then I just lay out sheets of aluminum foil over the glass shelves. Guess I'll just get out the magic eraser sponge and have at those cabinets and dining room walls I just use very dilute soap on our wood kitchen floors so no toxic fumes or anything. And the oven -self clean. I'm starting to think I have it way easier than y'all...

For those pancake-batter (or otherwise unidentifiable) cemented-on splatters on the walls and countertops - in a pinch (ie when sick or pregnant), I've soaked in something inedible to make it pogum, then taped over it. Not ideal because it's still dirty, but halachically was acceptable in my situation.
I'm blocking out 2 days to tackle my kitchen. Still don't know if I'll get any yeshiva-bochur help, but dh might be able to tackle the heaviest stuff for me.
I also only convert one or two cupboards, and the dishes, pots/pans, etc can sit on counters even if I have less space to work.
But, scrubbing the sink, cleaning the fridge, and doing the stove (even with self-clean, there are bits of the stove that need cleaning by hand) take a lot of time and energy. Even washing the counters and outsides of cabinets takes time and energy. And, with a toddler around who doesn't nap reliably, and an appt with her on Tuesday, I know that I have to do it in stages.

We don't wash dining room walls, because there is no chance that food will be flung against the wall, touch hametz, and then get eaten. Even the toddler won't do that. or at least she hasn't yet, which is good enough.

We bleach the kitchen floor because untensils fall while I cook and I want to keep using them. Once a year won't hurt anyone. Especially not me, since I'm not home for it.

I'm only talking about the kitchen, and only the backsplashes, although I might give a quick wipe with cleaning solution to the other walls while I'm wiping down cupboard doors. No other walls get washed, and the windows with sticky handprints also don't get washed - it's less than a kazayis, even if a dog would lick it!
There's a stain on our Dining Room wall, right behind the high chair, that was made very soon after we moved into our house (so about 6 years ago). It was a massive splodge of sweet potato or butternut squash. We got the major part of it off, but some seems to have welded to the wallpaper, and just won't come off. You can't even tell what the food is now, because it changed colour over the years. No way it's still chametz, however much it looks odd to see it there on Pesach. Cobwebs won't be attacked before Pesach, either, unless I have an emotional need to swipe at them!