Fresh Limeade & Cherry Limeade Slushies

  I'm not a fan of Sonic's food, but I do live their cherry limeades...I always get the largest size so it will last me longer. We bought a bag of fresh cherries since they were on sale even though we had a bag in the freezer, but they still had their pits in and I didn't want to wait for them to defrost before pitting them to make what I wanted.                             

  Anyway, I looked on several sites to get some good recipes and I got a few, but most of the recipe I found either used dried cherries, prepared pie filling, or preserves. I thought about making a clafoutis which traditionally uses the whole cherry because the pit are suppose to give the dish an almond-like essence, but can be difficult since you have to tell everyone who eats it that there are pits in the dessert so they have to be careful. I thought about trying to make it with pitted cherries and just add a splash of almond extract instead. I made a chocolate cherry shake today that I found online, but you couldn't taste the cherries, barely tasted the chocolate, and it tasted watered down...so that recipe was a no. 

  I then found this recipe and decided that it was a winner before even trying it. The limeade alone is good, but when you blend it with the cherries it becomes even better. You could also pour these into paper cups or popsicle molds to make popsicles.

Fresh Limeade & Cherry Limeade Slushies 

Recipe: Good Life Eats

Limeade:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 cup fresh lime juice
4-6 cups cold water, to taste*

In a small sauce pan, combine 1 cup water and sugar, and turn to medium heat until the sugar is dissolved - this is a simple syrup. Remove from the heat to cool down. In a pitcher, combine the simple syrup, lime juice, and water and chill.

*Note: After adding in 4 cups of water taste the limeade and then taste after every 1/2-1 cup of water you add to get the taste you prefer.

Cherry Limeade Slushie: serves:2-3
2 cups limeade*
1 1/2 cup cherries, pitted and frozen (about 10 oz once pitted)
1-2 cups ice**

Combine 2 cups limeade, crushed ice, and frozen cherries in a blender. Start with 1 cup ice and add additional ice until desired texture is achieved. Puree until blended to slushy consistency. Serve immediately.
*Note: you could use store bought limeade if you didn't want to make the recipe above.
** the original recipe used crushed ice, but we didn't have any so I just added 1 cup of ice into the blender and pulsed it until it become fine (like shaved ice), add the rest of the ingredients, and add some more (regular) ice. Just pulse it at the end to make sure you don't have big ice chunks.