Heavenly Bites

Food glorious food! Okay so this is my second food post and I know what you're all thinking, is she going to go down the food blogging route now? The answer is no. I just want to show you guys how awesome this new book I have is!

This is a collaboration post with the author of the book Heavenly Bites. Karimah Bint Dawoud. If you haven't heard of her, well now you have. The award-winning Karimah is a qualified nutritionist. Her book, Heavenly Bites, won the Gormund award in Paris (so you'll know this book is pretty darn good if it has won an award.)

More about the lady herself, she's a trustee of a charity called Karimah's Cuisina. It's a non-profit organisation where she cooks and feeds homeless people in central London. It also promotes faith-based wellbeing. 

After she had co-produced and presented a successful cooking show, she was invited to make a book with the healthy versions of traditional Islamic food. It was then that she started to realise nutrition was the way forward. That's when she went into a clinical nutrition course with the hope of combining nutrition with Islam.

Her most recent project is working on writing a new book. This one though will be more about the Islamic way of cooking and eating. In the book, she's also exploring having a consciousness about the environment and animal welfare which right now, in the world that we live in, is such an important topic. (By the way that's only a snippet of what this talented lady has been up to.) Head over to her blog to find out more about how to use Nutritional Sunnah foods >>> Karimahs Cuisina

In this post, I wanted to specifically show you all her book Heavenly Bites. It's a cookbook about some of the best recipes from around the world. She takes traditional recipes from different parts of the world and shows you how to make them. It's very clear and easy to understand.

It's split into six different sections, each section has several types of recipes in its particular category. The sections are:

• Soups
• Salads
• Snacks
• Smoothies
• Main Courses
• Marinades
• Sweets

These are great categories as you'll be able to cook a full 3-course meal with all the sides and extras as the book provides you with all of it. I love how it even has a marinades section. That's actually really helpful especially if you're unsure as to how to make one and whether it will taste nice or not. 

The book is fairly short, so don't expect it to be thick and filled with pages and pages of recipes. Remember, it's a book about the BEST recipes from around the world, not all of the recipes. These are a select few favourites that you can use again and again, knowing that people will actually like and enjoy them. 

The recipes are also simple to make, so for a person that isn't so great with cooking, learning from the book is pretty straight forward. Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed making recipes from this book and eagerly look forward to using more of it. 

So, since receiving the book, you can clearly see I got a little busy with using it. From the pictures, you'll see I used a couple of recipes, one from the soups section and one from the main course section. I chose to make the Bengal Dhal Soup and the Faith Roast Chicken, well because they are classic favourites for me as it is.

Now, the soup was fairly straight forward. This is one of my favourite soups so it was definitely a must-make. Also, I really wanted to try her particular recipe which turned out to be just delicious!

Let's get onto the Faith Roast Chicken. (And boy, did I have faith when I sunk my teeth into this chicken!) It's really unlike any roast chicken I have made before. I think the fact that it required poaching beforehand had something to do with it.

Then the prunes added into the roast just made the flavour of the roast a whole lot juicier. The crunch of the nuts as a dressing was just the icing on the cake. Look at it this way, I never thought a sweet roast could ever taste this good!

That's just only two of the delicious recipes imagine all of the other goodness it has to offer! Another recipe I had tried was the Ajwa Shake. I tried this one particularly because I'm planning on drinking it during Ramadan. Well, I am actually planning to use most of these recipes in Ramadan as they are both healthy and tasty, which is just the perfect mix!

Just before you leave, I have some great news for you! I am hosting a giveaway of this lovely book over on my Instagram >>> @stepinsidemyhandbag. The giveaway is worldwide and the book is a signed copy by Karimah herself! It will start on Saturday the 16th of April and end on Monday the 8th of May.

In order to enter the giveaway on my Instagram, you must:

1. Follow me @stepinsidemyhandbag
2. Follow Karimah @theislamicnutritionist
3. Tag 3 other people below the giveaway post

If you'd like to keep updated with Karimah's Islamic nutritious advice, check out her blog here >>>Karimahs Cuisina<<<