cherry limeade, finally!

Several years ago my husband and I were visiting my brother in Indiana and visited a Sonic Drive-In for the first time ever.  I think we ordered chili dogs and tater tots.  And I ordered a cherry limeade; it sounded interesting.  The food was OK (think Hormel chili), nothing to write home about. But the cherry limeade?  Delicious!  From then on, I was always looking for cherry limeade on the menu when we went out to eat.  The only place I ever found it was at Red Robin.  Then for some weird reason they took it off the menu. Then Sonic made it's way into Connecticut and I again had a "source."

Fast forward to 2013 and I decide to have gastric bypass surgery.  You know what one of my splurges was before my pre-op diet started?  A giant cherry limeade from Sonic and a cheese dog.

Once I had surgery I figured I'd never have another cherry limeade.  The reason being that it's made with lemon-lime soda and it's hard to have a cherry limeade without the soda.  Plus, it's got a lot of sugar.  I was OK with that, though.  Until summer rolled around.

Several weeks ago I started craving slushies and bought some sugar free Torani syrups so I could mess around with some recipes.  That got me wondering if I could use the syrup to make a sugar free version of a cherry limeade.  The Torani website lists a cherry lime syrup, but it's not sugar free.  There wasn't a similar flavor in the sugar free section so I just went about my business.  Also, I wasn't finding any recipes on the web that didn't call for soda.  So, I gave up.

Then, while I was shopping for syrups on Amazon, I saw one bottle of Torani Sugar Free Cherry Lime Syrup.  I bought that sucker as fast as I could!  It arrived the other day.

But I still had the problem of dealing with the soda.  I decided I would use ice, water, frozen cherries, and 2 TB of the cherry lime syrup.  I figured it would probably be close.  Then I had a thought:  how about using Crystal Light lemonade instead of water?  That would give me the lemon in the lemon-lime soda without the carbonation or sugar.  Guess what?!  It worked!  And it tasted great!  It was quite thick and I didn't have a straw, so I kept having to stir.  Next time I will buy straws or add less ice. (Recipe below)

Cherry Limeade Slushy

Note:  It calls for Sugar Free Torani Cherry Lime Syrup, but it looks like it's discontinued and is hard to find. If you don't have issues with sugar you can use their regular cherry lime syrup.  But if you need it to be sugar free you can mix the sugar free cherry and lime varieties.

4-6 ice cubes 

1/2 cup frozen cherries (I used 365 brand frozen dark cherries from Whole Foods)

8 oz. Crystal Light Lemonade (or any kind of lemonade if you're OK with sugar)

2 TB Sugar Free Torani Cherry Lime Syrup

Put it all in the blender and blend until it's of a slush consistency.