Wingspan’s Kanz Bitar writes her weekly blog post, Culinary Crusade. This week’s addition featured Mexican fast food chain Chipotle and her thoughts on the food.
Chipotle surprises with tasty bowl
Chipotle has always been a restaurant that lots of students around here enjoy. However, Mexican food has never been my forte of expertise and I have never even had a burrito. And so it was off to Chipotle for my latest culinary crusade.
The first time I went to Chipotle I chickened out of getting a bowl and got a quesadilla instead. I was severely judged by my friends to say the least. And for my second attempt, I went for it and ordered the bowl.
As I was progressing the line, it came to my attention that both varieties of rice had cilantro. Sadly for me, I despise cilantro. Luckily, the employee who was taking my order brought out plain white rice for me.
Before taking my first bite I hesitated, contemplating whether I should take the bite or not. But I finally did it and to my surprise, I loved it. It was tasteful, delightful and now I finally understand why people enjoy Chipotle.
With every journey, there are always clear expectations, but this time to my shock, I truly enjoyed the Chipotle bowl.
Mango banana ice cream
We recently bought the Whynter stainless steel ice cream maker and it was probably the best investment we have ever made. I have already made a mango banana ice cream and a chocolate one.
Now that we have a machine that can pretty much turn any liquid into a creamy tub of goodness the possibilities are pretty much endless. I could literally pour chocolate milk into the thing and an hour later, boom we have ice cream.
It’s great for people who have certain sensitivities, for example, my family avoids milk in general so it’s very easy to make dairy-free or yogurt-based ice creams. My mother was particularly interested in the process; she was so excited and wouldn’t stop talking about the different flavors we could experiment with.
On the other hand, coming up with a name for my business is probably the most difficult part of the process. We brainstormed for weeks and we are still iffy with what we have come up with.
Hopefully, I can decide on what I really like and make it official.
To make the mango banana ice cream.
- 2 Ripe mangoes
- 2 Bananas
- ¼ cup Sugar
- 1 cup Coconut milk
- 1 tbs Vanilla extract
To make the chocolate ice cream.
- 4 Bananas
- ⅔ cup of Cocoa powder
- 1 cup Coconut Milk
- 1 tbs Vanilla extract
To make the ice cream you just blend all the ingredients until you get a smooth mixture and you pop it in the machine and in an hour’s time it’s done.
I found that using bananas as a base really enhances the sweetness of the ice cream, this way you don’t need to add as much sugar compared to making the ice cream without bananas. Especially in the chocolate one, it is so subtle you don’t really get the strong banana flavor as it just added to the sweetness.