Thistle

During the depths of the pandemic, seemingly all my neighbors got on board the meal delivery service wagon.  I live in a large condo complex, and the piles of Home Chef, Blue Apron, and Hello Fresh boxes took over our package room.  And then, people grew sick of quasi-cooking, and still couldn't go out, and a new wave hit, now with prepared meals and healthier focus, from the likes of Thistle, Factor, Daily Harvest, etc.  It was amusing watching the phases my neighbors went through, evidenced by all the deliveries.

I didn't join in the fad however, until recently, when I finally get Thistle a try.

Thistle Values.

If you are unfamiliar, Thistle is a bit unique in the space.  They have a very strong health focus, primarily vegetarian, mostly vegan, and gluten-free.  They provide full ingredient and nutritional info for every meal.  The company is slightly local (West Coast) and uses their own couriers for deliveries, delivering fresh bags of food, rather than frozen boxes via regular mail service.  They deliver twice a week, with the food you need for the next 3 days.  They offer a variety of meal plans, with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks all part of the standard lineup.  Menus change weekly, but rotate through every couple months, so regular favorites do return.  Breakfasts are mostly chilled items, although some can be heated.  Lunches are generally chilled salads/bowls.  Dinners can involve a quick trip to the microwave, but otherwise, these are ready to go.

These highly curated healthy and convenient meals come at quite the premium though.  Vegan meals are $14.99 each (meat proteins are $17.24), with snacks at $6, juices $8, and extras like salad shakers $9.  No, they don't have desserts.  Delivery charges are extra.

I am not vegan, not gluten-free, and not particularly health focused, so I'm clearly not their target customer, and it did take a little adjusting of my own taste buds to enjoy the products.

Breakfast

Amusingly, it is the breakfast offerings that most drew me in to Thistle, and I assume those are the least popular meal people use them for.  Sure, I enjoy my regular easy to prepare breakfasts, but, the Thistle breakfasts are the closest things they have to desserts, and thus, my interest.  (Ok, to be fair, the majority of the breakfast dishes are smoothies or tofu scrambles, very healthy, and what you'd expect from the brand, but the ones I was drawn to of course were not those).

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble With Vanilla Cashew Buttercream.

"A delicious seasonal combination of strawberries & rhubarb baked with almonds & oats. Enjoy with a creamy vanilla cashew buttercream."

While this dish was listed as a breakfast, I intended to have it as a dessert - not that I have any problem with fruit crumble for breakfast, I eat regular fruit crumble/crisp for breakfast whenever I have some leftover (usually with a dollop of yogurt instead of my regular whipped cream or ice cream).  The instructions included on the packaging said to heat it in a toaster oven at 350* for 3-5 minutes, but of course I tried a bite cold.

I was reasonably impressed.  The fruit was nicely stewed, juicy, flavorful, mostly large plump strawberries.  Fairly sweet but not too sweet, lightly spiced.  The ingredients listed "seasonal fruit" in addition to strawberries and rhubarb, but I didn't find any other fruit, which was fine.  The topping was a bit mushy straight from the fridge, but was a standard crumble topping of oats, along with almonds for crunch.  The ratio of fruit to topping was in good balance.

I would have been happy eating it cold, for breakfast or dessert.  

Next I did heat it up as instructed.  As expected, the topping got a bit more crisp, and the fruit was all bubbly.  Even more dessert appropriate in this form.

It also came with two whole strawberries, nicely ripe.  Perfect for plating it up and making it look fancy.  Kudos for the fresh fruit with this one.  

**** for a truly enjoyable dish, cold or hot, breakfast or dessert, with or without added ice cream, frozen yogurt, regular yogurt, whipped cream, as you see fit.  I'd get this again.

For the curious, the crumble without the cream is 330 calories, 21g fat, 8g protein, 12g sugar.

Vanilla Cashew Buttercream.

The cashew buttercream was a perfect example of why people mock vegan desserts.  It was not cream. It was not buttercream.  It was runny and full of chunks.  It looked like something that had curdled and gone bad.  My brain said, "bad bad bad!", as I looked at it, but, I pressed onward, knowing that this was likely expected, and not an indication of something I shouldn't be putting in my body.

The flavor was actually pretty decent, strong vanilla flavor, nicely sweet (from maple syrup).  It didn't taste like cashews really.  It did work fine to drizzle over the crumble, but, it certainly didn't hold up in any way, and wasn't a cream (or buttercream as they call it).

For breakfast, I actually would just add a dollop of sweetened (or not) yogurt on top the crumble and eat the whole thing cold. For dessert, I'd definitely go warm with ice cream, tart frozen yogurt, or real whipped cream, and just use this cashew cream for something else (although I have no clue what really).  It adds 80 calories, 6g fat, 3g protein to the dessert.

*** taste, but *+ look and texture.

Super Seed & Berry Muesli.

"A deliciously hearty muesli base, topped with a coconut & vanilla mylk tinted with blue spirulina."

The muesli made me so sad.  I was so excited for it.  I love muesli of all kinds - the crunchy kind you have like cereal, the overnight bircher style, all of it.  I adore it, and lament the fact that we don't have much muesli in the US.  When I visit Australia, it is a staple of my existence.  I wasn't sure what style this would be, but, I was excited.

The instructions said to eat it cold, or microwave for 40 seconds and add a tablespoon of water or milk.  I tried it cold first, eager to dive in, even though it looked more like overnight oats with additional dry oats on top, rather than anything muesli-like.  I didn't like it.  It wasn't creamy like overnight oats or bircher muesli, it was thick and gloopy.  The taste was quite bitter (likely from the chia seeds, sunflower seeds, sunflower butter), and it was just lumpy and stodgy.  

So I tried it warm, heating up half of it.  I added a tablespoon water as instructed.  It was no better, in fact, I think it was worse.  Now it was just super thick and gloopy oatmeal, that was oddly bitter.  I added a lot more water to try to turn it at least into regular consistency oatmeal.  It still just didn't taste good.  I think the sunflower butter was the failure for me.

Further, for an item that has "berry" in the title, it also had very little berry.  There were a couple tiny tiny fragments of what I guess was raspberry (freeze dried?) and a couple very mushy blueberries (also freeze dried? Rehyrdrated?).  No fresh fruit, which it certainly could use.

I tried adding yogurt to the rest I hadn't heated to make it more like bircher muesli.  Still, meh.  The flavors weren't good (so bitter), the textures weren't good (nothing crispy nor crunchy here), the consistency wasn't good (so gloopy).  *.  I would never get this again.

It was also a pretty hefty meal - 400 calories, 11g protein, 15g fat in just the base muesli.

Which gets me to the "Blue Majik Mylk".  Unlike the previous cashew cream that was more watery and milk-like, this one actually was quite thick, nothing like milk.  It was basically coconut cream with blue spirulina to make it look "magical".  Very, very thick.  Very strong coconut flavor.  It definitely helped jazz up the dish, but particularly if you didn't warm it up, it didn't mix in much as it was so thick.  Maybe fun as a spread on toast?  It adds another 80 cal, 7g fat. **+ because it was novel, but was odd to pair with this.

Lunch

Thistle lunches, besides on weekends, are basically all salads.  Designed to grab from fridge and ready to eat.  I tried one.

I didn't try any dinners, those are mostly dishes you heat up, generally legume and rice bowls, hence why I wasn't interested.

Lemongrass Lettuce Cups with Buckwheat.

"Scoop a marinated mince of sauteed vegetables, crisp cucumber, ginger, lemongrass, and peanuts with our house made "fish" sauce into each leaf of lettuce for a delicious bite of each cup."

Most of Thistle's lunch offerings are salads, but I went for the slightly more fun lettuce cups.  Sadly, it was fairly awful.

The instructions told me to scoop the filling mix into the lettuce cups to make my own wraps/cups.  This is where things first went wrong, as the lettuce pieces were not actually big enough to do so.  Big pieces of bibb lettuce would have worked, but, these pieces could not really hold any filling.  Not practical as wraps.

Undeterred, I tried to make it into a salad, tearing up the lettuce pieces slightly.  The lettuce was crisp, but, the ends were browning.  This still was fine-ish, and not the core problem.  The cucumber slices were also fine, although some were starting to turn a bit mushy.

The core problem was the filling, with buckwheat groats, tiny pieces of water chestnut, mushrooms, onion, carrots, peanuts, and hemp seeds, marinated with lemongrass and others.  It had good textures, and the peanuts in particular added a great crunch, but ... it tasted like it had gone bad.  Remarkably sour.  It smelt off.  I tried different components, but, it really seemed like it may have gone bad.  The odor was strong.  After a few bites, I decided that not only did it not taste good and wasn't worth "saving", it truly might make me sick.  If I hadn't been so fearful that it had gone bad, I may have considered trying to warm it up in a skillet perhaps, but, yeah, it just seemed so very off. 

* I guess, for moderately fresh lettuce and cucumbers, but, even those weren't in great shape.  This meal, without the sauce, is somehow 510 calories, 306 fat, 20g protein which surprised me, although I guess peanuts really do add up.

And then there was the house "fish" sauce.  Made from coconut aminos, date syrup for sweetness, lime juice and rice vinegar for acidity, plus tahini, garlic, sambal, and mushrooms ... I had no idea what to expect from the taste of this.  It was also a thick, dark sauce, which doesn't really mirror classic fish sauce.  The taste was good though, lightly tangy and lightly sweet, it did have Asian vibes.  A fairly light dressing, at 50 calories.

Snack

And finally, snacks, the other more interesting category to me.  These range from veggies (or gluten-free crackers of some kind) and dips, to baked goods, and items that sorta sound like real dessert (e.g. tiramisu. mousse).

24 Carrot Gold Muffin.

"This moist carrot muffin is loaded with applesauce, flax seeds, almonds, and plump raisins, and is spiced with cinnamon and ginger."

I found it interesting that the carrot muffin was listed as a snack rather than a breakfast item.  I planned to eat it as a breakfast item, but of course snuck a bite as soon as it arrived.  I was also a bit surprised that it said it needed to be kept refrigerated, but I'll admit I'm no expert in vegan and gluten free baked goods.

I took one bite, and was pretty close to spitting it out.  Wow.  Not that I expected it to be amazing, but it does have a substantial number of reviews, and high rating by other Thistle users.  A regular item on their menu.

While carrots are the first ingredient, I truly did not taste any carrot.  I tasted the dates used for sweetness, and I tasted the bitter flaxseed, and the spicing from cinnamon and ginger, and certainly detected the odd vegan and gluten-free nature of it from the use of applesauce instead of egg and cassava flour and almond meal instead of regular flour, but carrots? Nope.  I didn't taste them, and it didn't have any shredded carrots as I expected either.  It was dense and hearty like a bran muffin, but without the texture of the grains that make a grain muffin enjoyable.  It tasted healthy, was oddly gummy, and again, no carrot taste.  The raisins were plump as advertised, and all clumped at the base.

So, at first taste, definitely not what I was expecting. I saved the other half, and warmed it up, and topped it with cream cheese, and enjoyed it more, particularly once my expectations were readjusted to be more like a bran muffin than a carrot cake.  I suspect it would be nice with some jam as well.

For the curious, this muffin is 310 calories, 7g protein, so certainly better for you than your average muffin. 

*+ at first, **+ once jazzed up.