Chloe's Soft Serve Fruit Co

This weekend was such a nice way to kick off the summer season, because the weather was beautiful and warm both yesterday and today.  Since the weather tends to get pretty unpredictable over the summer, we tried to maximize our time outside as much as possible.  Today, we ran around the reservoir in Central Park, which is such a nice run, and then kicked around a soccer ball and laid out in the park for a bit.  The sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky, so it was the perfect time to try to get some color.  I do tend to get restless laying outside for too long because I get very hot and bored, so after about 40 minutes of laying outside we decided it was time to leave the park.  It was around 2:30 and I could feel my blood sugar dropping, so I knew it was time for an afternoon snack.  I usually have some sort of granola bar, but was craving something cold and refreshing.

My sister immediately suggested that we go to Soft Serve Fruit down by Union Square.  She had recently received a coupon for a free sundae from there and has been dying to go, so we traveled downtown for soft serve fruit.

What is great about this place is that it looks like frozen yogurt, but it only contains three ingredients: fruit, water, and some organic cane sugar.  Therefore, it is dairy free, gluten free, and fat free.  The flavors they had today were banana, raspberry, dark chocolate, and mango I believe.  I tried the banana and the dark chocolate flavors, and both were delicious.  The consistency is a bit icy-er than regular soft serve ice cream, but it is still very soft and really refreshing.  Even though I liked the banana, I opted to get the dark chocolate flavor.  The dark chocolate flavor uses the cocoa bean, so even though it isn't necessarily fruit it still is dairy and gluten free.

After deciding on the flavor, it is very similar to Pinkberry in that there are various toppings you can choose from.  Some of them include fruit (bananas, blueberries, mango, etc.), chocolate chips, graham crackers, pretzels, coconut, almonds, chocolate sauce, etc.  After pondering for a while, I chose to get bananas and dark chocolate chips as my topping, which made it that much more delicious.

My sister got the special sundae of the day, which had dark chocolate soft serve, bananas, strawberries, and graham crackers.  She loved the combination, and was very satisfied with her choice.  She usually gets a fruit flavor like raspberry, but today she was inspired by the chocolate.  There are also many delicious sounding smoothies and sundaes, like one that has dark chocolate soft serve, bananas, marshmallow sauce, peanut butter, and chocolate chips, but I didn't want to totally sabotage the healthy snack so I stuck with just two toppings.

Overall, it definitely was the perfect snack for a hot afternoon in the city.  It was very refreshing and delicious, and was very satisfying.  Since it only has three ingredients, if you go there with the hopes that it will taste like typical frozen yogurt, you will probably be disappointed.  It retains the strong fruit flavor (or dark chocolate flavor) and has a hint of sweetness from the cane sugar, but it isn't creamy.  It is also a bit on the expensive side (my small with 2 toppings was 5.75), but it is worth it if you don't go too often.  If you are near Union Square, I would highly recommend coming here on a hot afternoon for a refreshing snack that won't set back your diet.

Trader Joe's Dried Baby Sweet Pineapple

I have a few items that are considered a staple in my snack cabinet, and Trader Joe's Dried Pineapple is one of them.  I usually grab a handful every morning as a nice and sweet pick me up.  It is the best dried pineapple that I have ever had, because it is nice and sweet but it actually retains the pineapple flavor and does not taste like pure sugar, since it is unsweetened and unsulfured.  Don't let the label "unsweetened," fool you, however, because these are pleasantly sweet.  Each serving is 130 calories and has 20% Daily Value of Fiber!  There are 4 servings per bag, but I usually just grab a handful and the bag lasts me over a week.

I highly recommend this product, as it is tasty and sweet, yet also healthy and not sugary or over-processed.  I should also note that the Trader Joe's near me recently was out of stock of this product for about a month, and I internally started to panic that I would not be able to get my pineapple fix!  Luckily for me, I had about 3 bags on reserve (when I like something, I tend to stock up).  On my recent trip back to Trader Joe's, they had restocked and I snatched up about 6 more bags.  Yes, I recognize that may have been a bit overboard, but they don't expire for a year, so why not?  Regardless, if you are a fan of dried fruit but prefer not to overload on sugar, you should buy this product!