I think I first came across It’s Halal on LinkedIn. I’m not sure if the owner followed me or whether it popped up in my feed. It’s possible that I may have come across it prior to this on my old Instagram profile but unfortunately I can’t check it out because that Instagram was hacked 😭
Anyway… Saima reached out to me on LinkedIn with a potential proposition so I was intrigued. People have reached out to me before but mostly to try and sell me their services. However, this was different.
Me and Saima finally got round to having a call and it was a lonnnng call 📞 which is weird since I am so NOT a call person! Honestly my friends would say I actively ignore calls… I literally watch my phone ring… wait 10 minutes and then send a text! I’ve just realised I’m off on a tangent.
Basically Saima offered to send me a surprise box of It’s Halal so I could check out the business model… and in my head I was like yay ’cause I did want to try the box but I didn’t have the funds lol 😆
So a box arrived and it was packaged really well. There were three meals and three recipes cards (which I wouldn’t normally have chosen) . I had a sausage tray bake, pesto pizza baguettes and pecking beef hoisin wraps. The actual meals were all packaged separately in brown bags and the meat and chilled items were wrapped in ice packs.
I started with the tray bake because I’m not big on sausages. No one in my family is really. Surprisingly…It was actually my favourite meal of the week. As soon as I took the sausages out of their bag… you could smell 👃 just how delicious they were going to be. This made me so excited. Also the fact it was a rope of sausages because how often do we get a rope of sausages as Muslims? I mean my butcher doesn’t even sell sausages! Rope or no rope!
Me and my mum both loved the tray bake. However there was enough left that my brother could also eat it. Now my brother HATES sausages with a passion. So we had to convince him to eat 🤭. He was fine with the veggies. He enjoyed them. What was actually hilarious 😂 though… was the fact he was eating the food in the kitchen. But… as the door was only slightly ajar… I couldn’t see him. I did however notice his reflection in the fish tank in the living room. He was eating the veg fine. He then picked up a piece of sausage… sniffed it 👃 and then put it in his mouth. The funny thing however was me seeing his expression change to wow because he loved the taste. These are the first sausages he’s ever liked!
Next I though I’d have the Pecking Beef. I have to say the cut of meat was excellent. Properly cleaned. Not fatty. A nice bit of beef steak strips. I wasn’t a fan of the hoisin flavour but then again I’d never tried it before. My mum and brother weren’t fans either in this case. So while this was a disappointing experience for my palate… I’m actually really glad I got to try it in the comfort of my own home. I guess what I really need to admit here is that although it didn’t suit the palates of my family… this doesn’t mean it wouldn’t suit others. I’m a very fussy eater in general. For example I HATE chippy chips and frozen chips. I’m a die hard home made chips girl.
Finally… was the pesto pizza. I personally love pesto. My brother not so much and my mum doesn’t like it. So… me and my brother ate this and we both enjoyed it. I don’t like black olives… I prefer nocerella ones so I didn’t enjoy those and I’m not big on tomatoes especially if I can see them. I’m that girl that will literally take them out of a sandwich.
However overall I was impressed with the box. The recipes basically came with everything bar a little bit of oil, brown sugar and salt which I had to hand. My mum is not adventurous with her food at all… She usually eats pizza or fish and chips but she would never have tried something like the Pecking Beef. As previously mentioned my brother actually enjoyed the sausages which isn’t something he would ever usually go for. Also the recipes came together so quickly which meant it was easy to give mum a day off from cooking! I mean 30 mins is a really short time in the grand scheme of things and I think coming back from a full day at work and two hours of lectures, I didn’t feel stressed out about cooking. In fact I actually enjoyed it because it wasn’t much work at all. I think I got the long straw because on my days of cooking… it didn’t take much to cook. Plus I scored brownie points for doing the washing too!
I’m looking forward to writing more blogs for the It’s Halal brand. But those sausages… please try them! It’s a great way to spice up your dinner times, especially if you get stuck in a rut where you’re eating the same old all the time. Our family was like that when I was a child. It was chapati and whatever curry was cooked… chicken… lamb… daal pretty much every day! Or boiled rice with the curry. Although on special occasions we did get lamb or chicken pilau, tandoori roast chicken, spring rolls, kebabs, samosas and pakorahs. We did occasionally have fish fingers and chips but until I started exploring that was my childhood, 95% Pakistani cuisine and 5% fish 🐟 fingers and chips 🍟. Honestly… once again… try the box and help your palate explore. You might find something you love!
