Product Review: Purely Elizabeth Cereals

Of course, you all know that I have crazy oatmeal ideas with exotic fruits and unusual flavor combinations. However, when it comes to the grains, I’m pretty boring. I generally stick to plain old oats, occasionally adding flax or chia. And there was that one time I made half-oats, half-quinoa porridge (which was great).

Thus, when I received the opportunity to try Purely Elizabeth cereals, I quickly accepted.

Purely Elizabeth sent me two cereals: the 6-Grain Ancient Grain Oatmeal and an instant Apple Cinnamon Pecan Ancient Grain Oatmeal. The grains in the former include quinoa, millet, buckwheat, amaranth, kaniwa, hemp, flax and chia (and oats, obviously). 

I’m generally pretty wary about doing product reviews, but this one seemed too good to pass up. This 6-Grain Ancient Grain Purely Elizabeth cereal is organic, gluten-free, vegan, soy free, and has no sodium, artificial colors, or flavors. It also has 5 beautiful grains of fiber in each serving!

When working with so many powerful grains like this, it’s best to embrace the earthy, nutty flavors of the grains and choose flavors that complement it: apple, sweet potato, etc. This is not the time for cocoa powder. Thus, I made an applesauce oatmeal using the homemade applesauce I had made earlier in the week (after going a bit overboard at the market with the fresh local apples. . . ).

Since this cereal takes 20 minutes to cook (and I had a ton of applesauce to use), I made 3 servings that I could reheat throughout the week. I found that–because ancient grains are more inherently earthy than plain oats–I did need to use an increased amount of vanilla extract and cinnamon compared to my usual routine.

The result? The nuttiest, coziest, heartiest bowl of oats I’ve ever had. And the addition of the homemade applesauce was perfection. The pictures show the oats topped with pecans and maple syrup, but when I ate this throughout the week, I added peanut butter (obviously). Wouldn’t you?

Next I tried the instant Apple Cinnamon Pecan Ancient Grain Oatmeal. This one cooks in 2 minutes, so it’s a flavored and instant version of the other. Now, normally I would balk at this, but Purely Elizabeth has a leg up on the competition. Why? Because this “instant oatmeal” contains NO salt, NO sweetener, and NO “flavors.” That’s right, no potent, fake apple flavor! YOU get to control how much salt to add, and whether or not to sweeten it. You could leave it unsweetened, add in maple syrup, or stir in applesauce. SO MANY POSSIBILITIES.

So what makes it Apple? The oats come with dried diced apple. I know some of my readers have mentioned not liking dried apples after I used it in my Autumn Muesli (nummmm), but when you cook it, it does plump and moisten up again. Regardless, I much prefer the dried apple approach than FAKE APPLE FLAVOR (blah). And just like the 20-minute, 6-grain version, this oatmeal has that phenomenal  nutty taste that you can only get by combining all those different grains and seeds.

I tried this oatmeal two ways: plain, and with pumpkin puree (just because). This oatmeal is really open to being played with. Because there are no intense fake flavors, you can have fun with this. For my pumpkin version, I also added pumpkin pie spice, and I topped it with almond butter and dried cranberries. Num.

Thank you to Purely Elizabeth for this generous opportunity! I loved this cereal. And to anyone who read this entire post, bravo to you!