About

In the Name of God, the Most Benevolent, the Most Merciful

Thank you for visiting My Halal Kitchen!

Welcome to all things related to halal cooking, eating, and of course the halal kitchen itself. I hope you will join me in sharing and exchanging delicious halal recipes for all seasons and all meals you can prepare any day of the week.

About Me

Although I was born and raised in the U.S., I claim a Sicilian and Puerto-Rican ethnic heritage, while following the religion of Islam.  I was a Spanish and English Language and Literature teacher for nearly 10 years before recently deciding to pursue food writing and the teaching the culinary arts within a halal context on a full-time basis. I’m passionate about wholesome food, nutrition, gardening, and learning about fascinating culinary traditions of people all over the globe. I love real food and am concerned about the current state of our food industry and other factors that jeopardize our food freedom and fair and equal access to healthy food for all. It helps that I love to cook and the kitchen and garden are my favorite parts of the house- I could literally cook and discuss food topics all day long.

I  live in Chicago with my husband who also has a similar ethnic background. Together we frequently scope out ways to eat the same kinds of food we were raised on, as long as that food is halal, raised humanely, and grown without poisonous toxins and chemicals. Unfortunately, that’s not always an easy thing to do. We try our best–and whenever I find ways to do that, I have to share it with my readers.

Why Halal?

Being a Muslim mandates that a Muslim eat halal: pure foods ordained for mankind by Allah (God) in the Holy Qur’an and Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him). That being said, a practicing Muslim doesn’t drink alcohol or eat pork or foods with their by-products or derivatives. For example, boxed jello and marshmallows usually contain gelatin, which is often derived from pork and therefore not halal.

Why I created the My Halal Kitchen blog

I wanted to open up a forum where I could share with readers (regardless of religious or ethnic background) the tasty recipes I’ve been fortunate enough to gather from my research or developed on my own (I test all of my recipes). I also wanted to share kitchen tips, stories about cooking, my thoughts on food, and where you can find all the same things I do to create my halal meals.

Over the last several years, I’ve tried fervently to educate myself on the source of food by-products so that I could avoid ingesting anything impermissible, but also to enjoy my favorite traditional and ethnic foods, only now with halal (permissible) substitutions. For example, I’ve had to master my own chicken Parmesan, beef tacos and veal stew because there isn’t a halal restaurant I know of who will serve it up the way I’m used to eating it.

I have also gathered a small collection of trusted companies and stores that offer not only halal products, but ones that are also healthy for us. This has proven to be a challenge when it comes to things like sausages or veal meat because not only are they rare fare finds at halal restaurants, but few grocers provide a good variety of raw and/or deli meats (without all those unhealthy ingredients) from which to buy and make the dishes myself.

My journey has taken me on a mission to re-create our family favorites of Puerto Rican, Mexican, Sicilian and all other types of Mediterranean dishes, while avoiding as much pre-packaged and low quality food items as possible. I’ve also gained the desire to make more foods from scratch, simply because then I am guaranteed to know exactly what’s inside.  The result has been simply delicious, simply pure, simply… halal.

I hope you will enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoy creating it for you. May it be of benefit to all, insha’allah, God willing.

Peace to everyone (salaams)…

For media contacts interested in an interview, please visit my Press page. Serious inquiries only.

Author Bio

Yvonne Maffei, MA graduated from Ohio University with a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies and a Master’s degree in International Studies, where she specialized in international education, journalism and health. She has lived and traveled abroad in various regions throughout Latin America, Europe, the southern Mediterranean and North Africa as well as the American foodie cities of San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. She has been cooking and writing since she was a pre-teen and always wanted to turn her passion and hobby into something more. When one of her recipes was published in the May 2008 issue of Cooking Light magazine, it was all the inspiration she needed to make a necessary life and career change. After years of being a school teacher, she decided to re-angle her teaching platfrom from the classroom to her blog where she began writing about halal food and cooking and thus began a new career out of writing about food, travel and healthy, halal living. Today Yvonne writes and publishes MyHalalKitchen.com, a blog about halal food and cooking. She is currently working on a cookbook, teaches cooking classes, gives lectures on healthy eating, and consults schools on how to source healthy, halal ingredients and create tasty healthy and halal recipes for their school lunches. She resides in Chicago, IL.

In case you don’t get the audio of this video, here is the complete text:

Asalaamu’laikum (peace be upon you)! Welcome to MyHalal Kitchen.com. I’m Yvonne Maffei and on my site you’ll find recipes and suggestions that fit your halal lifestyle. My recipes are quick, straightforward and easy to make. I’ll introduce you to producers of top quality produce, sustainable meats and poultry, artisanal cheeses and more. I’ll even test out kitchen tools to help make your cooking experience even better. With all this and more, you’ll always get the very best of what’s cooking in my halal kitchen. Come on over- you’re always welcome here!

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