Pure Market Express Review

While I don't think a completely raw diet is necessary, and I have serious diets about its healthfulness and the degree of restriction involved, I think adding raw foods to a mixed diet is plenty healthy - and delicious! 

Raw foods can have a lot of benefits and can be really tasty - just be careful not to eat too raw a diet or you can upset your stomach (unless you have a stomach of steel, which I do not).

But anyway, raw desserts are intensely delicious (some of my favorite desserts are raw desserts) and they're chockfull of good-for-you ingredients, like dates, coconut oil, agave syrup, bananas, and all manners of nuts and seeds!

Since raw desserts can be tough to get just right, especially if you don't have a bunch of expensive rawist equipment (like dehydrators and Vitamixes) and can be really time-consuming (and we busy people have better things, like change the world and follow our dreams, to do than stand in the kitchen for hours), getting them through raw food delivery services can be a great option. The only problem with raw food delivery services is that many of them make you order set menus for set prices and you know me - I like freedom of choice.

That's why Pure Market Express is pretty awesome! Pure Market Express is a raw food delivery service that offers customizable plans (including a dessert sampler for those of us who just want to try all the super-yummy raw desserts!)

They sent me some of their raw foods to try and, since I'm kind of obsessed with Instagram (and I had to recharge my camera batteries), I decided to do most of this review Instagram-style!

They sent a Pad Thai entree, a box of Corn Chips (shelf-stable), Bac'n Jalepeno Poppers, blueberry pancakes (shelf-stable), and a big serving (I checked the back, it's actually two) of lemon tart. 

I couldn't see what's in the corn chips, since the ingredients list was chopped off on the label.

As far as taste, they tasted surprisingly much like Doritos, with the crunch of tortilla chips!

I wasn't expecting to like them, as I often don't like savory raw foods, but they didn't have an overwhelming garlic or onion flavor!

The blueberry pancakes are made of bananas, pecans, macadamias, blueberries, agave nectar, honey, vanilla bean, celtic sea salt.

And that's it. Nothing whatsoever with a funny name, or that you wouldn't eat on its own (well, salt and vanilla bean might be questionable by themselves, but you get my point).

They're served with the honey agave mixture as syrup to cover them with. I was a little startled when I realized that the serving size was just one pancake, as they're not much bigger or thicker than my palm each.

But by the time I finished one, I was actually satisfied! They're sweet and rich in a way that forces you to slow down and savour each sweet, creamy bite. To me, they definitely tasted more like a decadent dessert than a breakfast, but they are healthy enough to be part of a nutritious breakfast!

Now for my favorite of the samples they sent.  No surprise here, it's the dessert - the lemon tart.

Sorry, this is also the one that I don't have an individual picture of, as it seems to have disappeared somewhere into my phone's camera. I'm just using the one from their site but, surprisingly, the lemon tart actually does look like that. Only the slice is bigger :)

The lemon tart is kept frozen, not in the fridge, and that makes it taste like a mix between a lemon pie and and a creamy ice cream pie. Hello, AMAZING. This goes straight to my list of best desserts that I've ever had, including homemade, restaurant, and non-vegan desserts, and I think I might even be asking for it as my birthday cake this year! It's a creamy, tart lemon filling over a crunchy, rich cashew and coconut based crust. All that's in it is cashews, agave nectar, lemon, coconut oil, cashew butter, shredded coconut, maple syrup, dates, salt, turmeric, and vanilla beans. All healthy stuff, but this tastes soooooo good!

Okay, rave over - moving on.

The Pad Thai was really good, all the veggies were fresh and the dressing/sauce/creme was tasty and not too onion-y. I wasn't expecting to like it, as I'm a sweet over savory girl, but once I'd scraped the onions into the bin and squeezed the cashew paste/dressing (in the packet) all over it, I really really enjoyed it.

The portion is very generous in size and the the zucchini noodles? I've never had zucchini noodles before but OH. MY. WORD. They were so amazing - the texture was out of this world, the flavor was refreshing and nutty (it's hard to describe, somehow it wasn't just your regular zucchini - I guess the dressing, maybe?) and once it was dressed in the cashew mixture, it was just soooooooooo good. This whole dish was so amazingly fresh, which I was really impressed by since I ate it the day after receiving it and all of the veggies have a lot of surface area for oxidation because of how they're chopped. But nope, no sogginess here!

I wasn't super-crazy over the Bac'n Jalepeno Peppers, as they were a bit spicy for wimpy me.

The onion/garlic flavor was also a little stronger in here than I like, probably because of the Bac'n, but the cashew filling was nice and creamy. It really tasted like some kind of cheese filling.

 Maybe like cream cheese mixed with some other sort? Sorry, I'm not really a cheese connoisseur (see the whole sweet-over-savoury thing).

Pure Market Express gets two thumbs up from me and I'd definitely recommend trying them out if you're in the US - yup, they deliver nationwide! I checked that out super-fast, since I actually really do want them to deliver my birthday cake (haha, next March - I'm a bit premature with the preparations) and plan to order from them now and then, when I feel like a treat and my budget allows for it. :)

I can't believe I go home in less than two weeks. I've really enjoyed NYC, and I'll definitely miss it (especially the convenience of getting to auditions) but I'm looking forward to fall semester and, more so, to spending some time with my family. I haven't seen my mom in half a year, that's too long for me!

What's the last dessert that blew your mind?

Have you ever had raw pancakes?

Do you like spicy foods?