Chocolate Cherry Milkshake

I just love the days leading up to vacation.  The anticipation of fun times to be had, only overshadowed by the hassle of having to do endless loads of laundry so that everyone in the family will be able to take along their most favored outfits.  And then there's the week of the most random dinners as you attempt to "clean out" the fridge so you aren't throwing away spoiled food when you come home.

That's where we are this week.  Between the mounds of laundry and the endless batches of cookies I'm trying to get baked to take with us, I'm pretty much pooped.  Dinner was less than stellar...one of those fend-for-yourself nights that our kids love because they get the Mac & Cheese and hot dogs they'd eat for every meal if we let them.  As I scrounged for what random items would become my dinner, I realized that we still have over half a bag of fresh cherries sitting in the fridge.  Seriously, what am I going to do with these?!  The kids aren't eating through them quick enough and it's just too many cherries for me to eat by myself in 3 days.  Then I happened to see a coupon magnet-ed to the freezer door...for a free Blizzard from DQ.  And it hit me.  I could make a homemade blizzard-y thing and I could throw in cherries...and chocolate, because you can't have a Blizzard and not have chocolate in it.  And so quick as a wink, I whipped up a batch of chocolate cherry milkshakes.  No real recipe, because let's face it, everyone has there preference for how thick a shake/Blizzard/Frosty thing should be.  I just tossed in some vanilla ice cream, a handful of fresh, pitted cherries, some milk and a few good squeezes of chocolate shop.  A few pulses in the Magic Bullet, a sprinkle of mini chocolate chips and BEHOLD....the Chocolate Cherry Milkshake.  The kids woofed it down (oh...not surprised about this at all) and asked for seconds.  (This was no surprise either.)  And then my oldest (the pickiest kid ever) claimed that it was better than a Blizzard from DQ.  Awesome...looks like we can save ourselves a little bit of money and start making our own concoctions here at home.