Disclaimer: Whole Foods Market provided me with my own $50 gift card to purchase ingredients for the recipe below. As always all opinions are my own.

Cherry season is here! I have seriously never been so excited for a fruit to be in season. I LOVE cherries and am lucky to live in the Pacific Northwest where a large portion of the cherries and North America are grown. When we lived in Vermont we hardly ever bought cherries, not because we didn’t enjoy them but because they were hard to come by and super expensive.

Currently our fridge is filled with cherries (although I bet most will be gone in the next day or two) because we took advantage of Whole Foods Cherry Fest and the $1.99/lb (!!!!) deal that happened this past Friday. We have been eating them by the handful but since we have so many I have been trying out some new recipes with them including the recipe I am sharing below for Fresh Cherry Limeade.

FRESH CHERRY LIMEADE

Recipe Provided by Whole Foods Market

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pound cherries (about 6 cups), pitted, divided
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup lime juice, plus 2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest
Sparkling water
1 lime, cut into wedges

Method:

Put 1 pound of the cherries, sugar and 1 1/2 cups water into a medium pot; cover and simmer over medium heat (reducing heat, as needed, to maintain a simmer) until cherries are very tender and have made a fragrant syrup, about 20 minutes. Set aside to let cool and then purée in a blender with lime juice and zest.
To make each glass of limeade, pour about 1/2 cup of the cherry-lime syrup and 3/4 cup still or sparkling water over ice in a tall glass. Stir well and then top with a small handful of the remaining cherries, garnish with a lime wedge and serve.

Nutritional Info:

Per Serving: Serving size: 1 drink, 150 calories (0 from fat), 0g total fat, 0g saturated fat,0mg cholesterol, 0mg sodium, 39g carbohydrate (2g dietary fiber, 35g sugar), 1g protein

I shared this with Edith after photographing and we both really enjoyed it (don’t worry I drank 80% of it). I am keeping the leftover syrup in the fridge to make up more Fresh Cherry Limeades this week because they were just well YUM!. With the remaining cherries I’m thinking of diving into a big bowl right now and also topping my bowl of oats with them tomorrow. I’m going to be sad when cherry season ends but until then I am going to eat all the cherries!

Giveaway // $50 Whole Foods Gift Card

Whole Foods has generously offered to provide one reader with a $50 gift card! If you win you might like to try the recipe above or one of these cherry recipes.

a Rafflecopter giveaway