#344: The 15-Plant Breakfast Bowl That Keeps You Full All Morning with Molly Patrick
What’s in Molly’s Porridge?
What if your breakfast could power you through the entire morning—without cravings, crashes, or hunger an hour later?
In this episode, Rip sits down with Molly Patrick, founder of Clean Food Dirty Girl, to dive deep into the breakfast bowl that has become a cult favorite in the plant-based community. Molly shares the story behind her hearty, nutrient-packed “Hippie Porridge Bowl”—a recipe she spent nearly eight years perfecting after realizing her usual steel-cut oats weren’t keeping her satisfied.
The result? A powerhouse bowl built from a diverse mix of whole plant foods—grains, lentils, leafy greens, seeds, fruit, and crunchy toppings—that delivers sustained energy, incredible flavor, and serious nutrition.
Together, Rip and Molly explore the philosophy behind the bowl, the importance of nutrient diversity, and why batch cooking can make plant-strong eating effortless—even on the busiest days.
If you’re looking for a breakfast that’s simple, satisfying, and packed with plants, this episode might just change your morning routine.
Key Takeaways from the Episode
1. Nutrient diversity matters - The more whole plant foods you include in your diet, the more nutrients and beneficial compounds you give your body.
2. Batch cooking simplifies healthy eating - Molly prepares a large batch of porridge once a week so breakfast is always ready.
3. Texture transforms meals - Crunchy, creamy, juicy, and chewy elements make meals far more satisfying.
4. Plants can power your entire morning - With the right ingredients, breakfast can keep you energized for hours.
5. Healthy habits are built over time - Molly shares how her journey—from unhealthy habits to a plant-strong lifestyle—shaped the way she eats and lives today.
Click HERE for the recipe
Episode Resources
Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9eH0NQl62JU
Want the recipe? Click HERE: https://cleanfooddirtygirl.com/gluten-free-next-level-porridge/
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Episode Transcript via AI Transcription Service
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the Plant Strong Podcast.
[0:05] If you're new to a plant-predominant lifestyle, you know that the right breakfast can make or break your day. That's why I am spotlighting a next-level Stick-To-Your-Ribs porridge from Molly Patrick of Clean Food Dirty Girl. It's a recipe that is so hearty and satisfying it might just become your new morning ritual, i'm not quite sure if i wanted to overtake the rips big bowl but we'll have to see this powerhouse bowl is loaded with protein fiber and a few surprising ingredients that will seriously elevate your breakfast
[0:49] game tune in and learn how to whip up a batch that keeps you full fired up and thriving. We'll have this game-changing breakfast right after these words from Plant Strong.
[1:03] What could happen if you stepped out of your ordinary for a few days and focused on feeling your absolute best? At a Plant Strong Retreat, hundreds of people have seen incredible results, meaningful weight loss, healthier cholesterol numbers, improved energy, even better sleep, all through whole food, plant-based nutrition, and a supportive community. You'll eat amazing food, you'll learn from experts and connect with others who are on the same journey. People leave retreats, not just inspired, but with the tools to sustain lifelong change. If you're ready to reset your health and feel the difference, go to plantstrongevents.com to learn more and secure your spot and use the code podcast to get the early bird rate. We have just a few spots left for Black Mountain, this year could be your healthiest yet. Keep it plant strong.
[2:09] Most health decisions don't fail because of motivation. They fail because of friction. It's 6.30 p.m. You're tired. You're hungry. And whatever's easiest usually wins. That's why the best investment that you can make in your health isn't another supplement. It isn't another program. It's your pantry when your shelves are stocked with real whole plant foods that are ready in minutes, oil-free, nutrient-dense, satisfying. You remove the negotiation. You remove the willpower battle. Plant Strong Foods are designed to make healthy the default setting in your life. Simple, delicious, real. It's the kind of food that you can trust when your energy is low, but your standards are high. Build a kitchen that works for you, not against you. Visit plantstrong.com and invest in the habit that pays you back every single day.
Welcoming Molly Patrick Back
[3:15] All right, Plant Strong people. We are back with Molly Patrick. You know, Molly is becoming a mainstay of the Plant Strong podcast. She joined us for Plant Stock this year and she is so in alignment with everything that PlantStrong is in alignment with. So it's really, it's been wonderful finding this terrific plant.
[3:43] Hawaiian, because she lives in Hawaii. She isn't Hawaiian, but the plant strong sister in Molly Patrick, clean food, dirty girl. That's me. Thank you. Yeah, this is the second time I've been on the podcast and I did the plant sock event with you. So thank you for having me back. It's a huge honor to know that we are in alignment. And so I'm really happy to be here today talking with you more about that crazy porridge that I showed you about at PlantSock. Yes, yes. So as you all know, I think my favorite, I could live off my breakfast bowl, literally, my Rips Big Bowl cereal. And Anne, my mom, could live off her savory steel-cut mushroom sriracha nutritional yeast bowl. And my father could live off his oat and berry bowl that he makes every morning. If you want to take a look, go to my Instagram channel. You can see all of us making our bowls. But Molly, she is just as adamantly passionate about her breakfast bowl as the three of us are. And when I find somebody that has this much...
[5:04] Excitement around making something, especially first thing in the morning, like for breakfast, I get excited. And so this is our opportunity. After I saw Molly share her creation at Plant Stock, I pulled her aside and I said, I want to do a podcast just on your breakfast bowl. So Molly, let's back up. What do you call this creation? Because I want to know. So there's been many iterations of this breakfast bowl. And you're right. I am so like silly. I'm so passionate about this. It's just silly. And so there's been like your mom's breakfast bowl. I found out she's had iterations of her bowl over the years. And the same thing with me. I mean, it really started as something a little bit basic and I kind of kept tweaking and adding to it. So originally I called it the hippie breakfast bowl or the hippie porridge bowl. Because that's kind of speaks to my roots and being raised by some serious hippies.
[6:11] Hold on, hold on. Just so we, so for people, because we've, we've got a lot of new followers. And so for people that haven't listened to your first podcast at Plant Strong or part of Plant Stock, can you just give us like the Reader's Digest version of your parents and how you grew up? Yes. Okay. So my parents met in the 70s in a very small mountain town in Colorado. They hitchhiked around. They lived in the mountains. They kind of dropped out of the white picket fence traditional roles that people were doing back then. They found each other. They... They wound up in New Mexico. They bought a five acre piece of land out in the middle of nowhere with nothing on it. They moved there and all of the kids were there and they built an outside kitchen. We had an outhouse growing up. We didn't have indoor plumbing for a long time. My dad had somebody come out and like dig a well so that we could have water. But when we first moved there. There was no like running water. My mom grew most of her veggies. So it was a very, this is 1980. I tell people it wasn't like 1880. It was 1980.
[7:31] And we were living in a way that was very different than most Americans at that time. So that's sort of the very, the very short version.
[7:42] Yeah well i know absolutely incredible um and so you were before i so rudely interrupted you you were just talking about how it's gone through iterations and it used to be called the the hippie porridge bowl and that's where you left off yeah and then i've so it's on our blog is like the gluten-free porridge bowl. And then I think like in our online membership portal, it's just called like porridge. So there's been a few names, but I like the hippie porridge bowl because it's really like speaks to my roots and it kind of gives you a preview of what you're going to get.
[8:25] So it's crunchy. Let me just put it that way. Okay. And how many years would you say that you have been working on iterations before it has reached this peak level of nutrition and flavor? Very well put. So I was messing around with this recipe since probably 2018. teen.
[8:52] So a good eight years I've been working on this. And the reason why, like, the reason why I started working on this recipe was because I used to do steel cutouts for many, many years. Steel cutouts was my go-to breakfast. And what I found, I have a huge appetite. So I'm not that huge of a person, but my appetite is huge. I love to eat and I can eat a lot of food. And so I would eat, you know, a big portion of steel cut oats, but I would never quite make it to lunch without getting hungry. So I would just like get hungry, you know, maybe an hour and a half, two hours later. And so I just started messing around. I thought, well, what else could I add to this? I thought, well, what if I added some lentils? Like that sounds really weird, but if I added some lentils to the oats, I wonder what that would do. And then I just thought, well, if I'm adding steel cut oats what if i add my favorite grain which is millet and what if i add some buckwheat which i'm like totally obsessed with yeah and i'm gonna add that stuff i could probably add some some kale and just make it even more you know crunchy and crazy um and then so and then i added some omega mix you know chia hemp and flax seeds um sometimes i add some turmeric a little molasses or date paste if I want a sweetener. So it just...
[10:15] It came to where it is now. And I really, I really found the perfect combo at
The Journey of the Hippie Porridge Bowl
[10:21] this point, but yeah, it's been about eight years. So do you make a huge batch and then do you like have Tupperware containers and you have it for days or do you make it every day? No. So I'm a big fan of batch cooking and I do that every, like I grocery shop on Saturday and I cook on Sunday. So I make big batches of everything throughout the week. Cause I just find that's the easiest way to eat since I'm so busy. So I will make, um, one big batch of this. So I have, I don't know where the other one went. Here it is. Let me just show you. So I just made this yesterday and I made this much. Oh yes. Okay. So this is like two pretty big containers. It also freezes really well. So if I make like, sometimes I'll just make even double of what I'm making and put a whole half of that in the freezer so that I can just pull it out of the freezer. And I could make it like once a month if I wanted to. And so I have this. This is what I have. I keep this in the fridge. And then I make my bowl from here, which I'm gonna show you here in a moment. But I wanna say one last thing to kind of like tie into my childhood and my hippie roots is that when I was little, my mom did not buy packaged cereal. deal.
[11:39] Ever. Cause that was just too over-processed. I mean, we really, I really grew up with eating whole plant foods. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So you mean, you mean to tell me that you never had Apple Jacks or Fruit Loops or Count Dracula or Frosted Flakes? Never. I wanted them, but no, never. Oh, I wanted them so bad. But my mom's like, nope. Once in a while she would say, okay, if you really want cereal, I'll buy you a package of grape nuts. I still love grape nuts to this day when you're eight and your friends are eating rice krispies and checks grape nuts doesn't cut it yeah yeah so anyways what my mom would do and what my mom would do for breakfast is it's not to this level but she would make um either rice or millet bowls for me in the morning and she would just put cooked rice or millet in a bowl with some fruit with a little bit of cinnamon and some non-dairy milk. And that's what I ate for breakfast as a kid. So this really does, it was really like a nostalgic thing to come back to. Well, you know what? So it really does harken back to your childhood. Yeah. How appropriate. So we really have your mother to thank for this.
[12:56] We do. Yeah. I mean, I pushed against the whole like eating healthy education for people and doing what I do for many years. But then I finally gave up and I was like, I think I'm just meant to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay. So yeah. So let's dig into your bowl a little bit more. Okay. So the cool thing is this is very flexible and it's very adaptable. So you can use a lot of different grains, but my favorite combination is steel-cut oats and, Millet, of course. I think I told you in a previous episode that my nickname was Millet Mall because I loved millet so much. Wow. Can I stop you just while you're talking about different ingredients?
[13:49] Millet, what do you like about millet? I've had it, but I've had it maybe a handful of times. What do you like about millet? Well, you know, I think I have a taste for it because I ate so much of it growing up. So I think that's just part of it. Like I'm familiar with it because I ate it so much as a kid, but I like the nubbiness of it. Like the texture I really like. It's really versatile, like putting it in casseroles or even soups or doing something like um a pilaf with millet instead of rice like it's just it's kind of light in flavor i like the texture it's just fun to add into things so i'm i cook with it a lot and is it is it little it's really little um it's pieces right tiny little pieces and it it's almost like um it looks like couscous but slightly bigger, Is it like amaranth or no? No, amaranth is much smaller. So amaranth and teff are really similar in size, but amaranth is really, really small and it cooks much quicker. And that's more like, I do amaranth a lot. I like amaranth as well. And that almost reminds me of like cream of wheat, you know, like that kind of texture. But this is more like couscous. Like if couscous and rice had a baby, I would say it would be millet.
[15:19] I, you know what? I love that description. All right. So we got, we, we got, we got baby millet here. We got the baby millet. We have the steel cut oats, which are fantastic. No, do you ever, do you ever, do you ever do oat groats instead of steel cut oats? I never do. I think they're harder to find here for one. And steel cut oats are just kind of my go-to. Do you think I should try oak groats one time? Well, it's just, it's kind of like the grandfather of the steel cut oats, right? Or the grandmother. It's because the steel cut oat has basically been, it's the oak groat that's been cut up three times. Right. Yeah. I'm going to try it. I'm going to try and get back to you.
[16:06] This will be the next iteration. Exactly. You're not done with me yet. Okay. So we have buckwheat. And steel cut oats, they look very similar, but they are different. And then finally, we have the lentils. And I have green lentils right now, but you can use brown lentils and you can also use black lentils. Like the beluga lentils are really good in this recipe as well. But I just happen to have green. So this kind of foursome, the millet, the steel cut oats, the buckwheat and the lentils, I think works best. Now you can do like barley. You can do quinoa. you can do amaranth and teff but i recommend doing like half as much of those um you can do um yeah i'm sure that like the only black rice and red rice are really good brown rice doesn't work as well for some reason um but it's very versatile so you can play around with it i mean i've done pretty much every combination you can think of so i soak these overnight and i do you know you could do a quarter of a cup of each or a half a cup of each or a cup of each depending on what kind of a batch you want to make but I soak the lentils and the grains overnight and then I use the instant pot to cook them and I.
[17:26] Strain out the water. I add all the stuff to the Instant Pot. Then I add new water. I add a little bit of date paste or a little bit of molasses.
Ingredients of the Perfect Bowl
[17:36] I add my Omega Mix, which I always have on hand in my fridge. And what I like to do is just add like a cup of flax seeds to my blender with a cup of chia seeds, blend all that, dump that in a bowl, and then add a cup of hemp seeds, stir it all together. And then I just keep it in a mason jar in my fridge and I keep the rest in the freezer so that I just make that once every couple months. That's interesting. So you specifically take ground flax or you take flaxseed, flax seeds and you take chia seeds and then you grind those up together in the blender. I've heard that obviously you have to grind up ground or flax seeds in order to have your body utilize them. Have you heard that's the same case with the chia seeds?
[18:35] I heard that one time and then I heard it doesn't matter. So I've heard both. um but and i use chia seeds without grinding them as well so i do use chia seeds and other like recipes and sometimes i do the chia pudding and stuff and i don't grind it but for this mix i just like everything ground because it's then you it's almost like you don't really know it's there and i like having that trifecta so and then i do keep everything in the fridge once it's all mixed and in the freezer if I have over like if I have more than that's going to go in this, jar which I always do because I like to make a bunch so I just do it once because again like the cooking in batches just makes sense, That's a strong mix right there for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's hardcore. So I add this to the Instant Pot with the grains and the lentils. And then sometimes I'll add a little grated ginger or a little grated turmeric or a little cinnamon or nutmeg.
[19:35] So depending on kind of what I'm feeling. And then I add a whole bunch of kale. Um this time I actually did kale and bok choy because I have these greens when I get home from the farmer's market I always wash all of my produce and when I have my leafy greens I usually get several varieties and so I just clean out my sink I dump everything in my sink and give them like a bath I'm bathing my leafies and then I'll spin them in my salad spinner and then I'll just put them all in bags, like mixed together. And so then I can just grab handfuls and I'll get a mix of whatever is in here. So sometimes it's kale and collard greens. Sometimes it's collard greens and chards. Sometimes it's bok choy and kale and collards. But I chop up a bunch of these and then add them into the Instant Pot as well. Tell me, I'm just curious, you're on the island of Maui, right? Yeah. Where do you do most of your shopping?
[20:38] Great question. So several places. It is really expensive if you're buying organic produce at grocery stores here. And it's just not as fresh because everything has to be shipped in. So there are very good organic farms here on Maui, up on the mountain in Kula. Uh this is an area where the soil is very very rich and things it has a really good amount of like sunshine and rain and the temperature is really nice for growing a lot of things so we're lucky enough to have a ton of organic small farms here and so when i buy produce i am buying it from the farmers markets because it's healthier it's fresher and it's a lot more affordable than going to the grocery stores. And I can get, you know, pretty much everything I need. And once in a while, you know, like the other day I bought fennel at the grocery store because I wanted to add that into my salads, but I can pretty much get everything I need there. And they have the most beautiful leafy greens.
[21:51] I, for about maybe eight years in a row, I competed in the Xterra World Championships, which are on the island of Maui. And I would always get off the plane. And the first place I would go is Mother's Grocery Store.
[22:09] Mother's? It must have not. We don't have it anymore. I know you had a Whole Foods. And then you also had, I thought it was called Mother's. Okay. Maybe you're thinking of Mana.
[22:20] Mana. might it might yeah maybe but maybe it's not there anymore yeah maybe we have um we do have a whole foods we have a grocery store called down to earth down to earth that was it it was down to earth yeah it was down to earth yeah yeah yeah i used to love going to their their their bar where you could just get all kinds of stuff they do yeah they're still around they have a nice they have a really nice bulk bin section and bulk spices um and they carry a lot of local produce but it's just the price is just a lot higher than at the farmer's market. And then there's a, and then really I do a trip to Mana market, which is a big natural grocery store in Paia and they own the building that they're in and they've been around since the seventies. So they can, they really can buy a lot of products so that they can keep their prices down because they have a huge warehouse. And so that's, that's sort of like my haven for, Got it. Got it. Well, okay. So once again, I interrupted you. You were just talking about how you were putting your kale and your chopped bok choy into the Instapot. Yes. And sometimes, okay. So people have asked me, it's kind of personal preference. It just, you know, it depends. You can put the leafy greens in the Instapot and then cook it. I cook it for 13 minutes and 13 minutes cooks everything beautifully.
[23:43] Even i've tried it with a lot of different combinations and every time 13 minutes has been great wow um so i'll either add the leafy greens in with everything else and just cook them or if i have a little bit more time um and i'm thinking about it like i can do the chopped leafy greens after the um everything is done cooking and just stir it all in it's going to be a slightly different consistency right the kale is going to be super cooked like a lot more cooked if it's cooking with the grains and it's going to be slightly less cooked if you add it after. I don't think that one way is better than the other necessarily, but I think it's just depends on like the texture thing and the flavor is maybe slightly different, but either way works. So for people that don't have an Instapot, let's just say we have a, you know, a little stovetop pan.
[24:39] What's the time on that? You can do it. It's the same measurements. I think it's about, I don't know, 18 to 20 minutes maybe. You would just keep an eye on it and just stir it. I like the Instant Pot because it's hands-off, but I know not everybody has one. Also, any other pressure cooker would work. I have made it on the stove when I'm traveling and I don't have an instant pot and it works really well as well, but it would take like about 18 minutes and you might just check an eye on the water level. When this is done, I'd like it to be like not too much water and not too like thick. And so sometimes like I'll add a little bit more water if it's a little too thick.
[25:27] And so, you know, you kind of see what you think, but just know that a lot of the water will be absorbed as it cools, as what happens a lot of times with grains. And so I really like to, to just set it out and let it set out for like an hour before I put it in the fridge and just stir it and just see if I want to add a little bit more water. And if, you know, so it's, it's, you can't mess it up really. Have you ever, have you ever tried using apple juice or pineapple juice or, uh, plant-based milk or is it always water? I always do water, but I, juice might be interesting, but, um, I do use the plant-based milk when I'm.
Cooking Techniques and Tips
[26:08] Preparing it, which I'm going to show you, but I've always just added water just, I guess, cause it's easier, but I don't, you know, it might be interesting to do, do it with juice. I might have to try that. Oh no. Even more iterations.
[26:21] That's right. Now we're adding the oat groats and, uh, and the special pickle juice. Or the lily koi juice, right? The passion fruit juice here on the Island.
[26:35] Exactly exactly so what do you think is it is it is it time for us to actually see this in action, yes but before almost almost so i want to talk to you briefly about the toppings so oh my oh my gosh this is a whole other rabbit hole that we're going to go down for a moment so one thing that i think is really important with food, any kind of food, is the texture. And the.
[27:03] In my opinion, the more textures, the better. Like I don't want to eat a bowl of a one texture thing. Even if I'm eating like mac and cheese, I want there to be some broccoli and maybe a little bit of walnut parm and maybe some shredded carrots on top. Like I'm all about the different textures because it just makes it so satisfying to eat. And it's pleasurable to feel different textures in the mouth. So the toppings for me is really what makes this kind of come alive. So I've tried a lot of different toppings, but what I've landed on now is a combination of toasted buckwheat, cacao nibs, and sesame seeds. And so what I do, and I'm just going to make this little mix for you here. So I'll just take a mason jar. I just happen to have about a third of a mason jar full of toasted buckwheat in my fridge. And we talked about this on the Plant Strong podcast, but what I do every couple of weeks is I put, I take out my big baking sheet and I put a layer of buckwheat, just raw buckwheat on the baking sheet. And I cook it at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes, 20, 25 minutes until it gets nice and brown.
[28:25] And when you are in a grocery store, and if you're in the bulk bin section or the grain section, if you see something called kasha, that is just buckwheat that has been toasted. And so instead of buying toasted buckwheat, instead of buying kasha. It's a little bit more expensive and it's been toasted a while ago. So I was like, well, I could just toast my own, right? Cause I don't know if you know, but you can eat buckwheat without cooking it. Like you don't, it doesn't have to be cooked. It's, it's hard, but it's, it's, it's doable. So I decided to just toast my own one day and my kitchen smelled amazing. And when I tasted it, I was like, Whoa, it is so nutty and so rich and so good that I've been toasting my own ever since. And.
[29:12] So I run a plant-powered weight loss program. And so for a lot of people who are used to eating a lot of nuts on things, I have them switch to toasted buckwheat because it's a lot less fat and you're still getting that crunchy kind of nutty flavor. So this is amazing. I can't speak highly enough. What a smart substitution for nuts. Yes. For sure. Yeah. And it really is like, it does really just taste so good. It doesn't have exactly the same texture, but if it's important to you to limit your nuts or to cut your nuts out, this, you're going to be really happy with this. You know, what's interesting is you, um, again, I'm cutting you off here, but is that you said you can eat this raw.
[30:01] Uh, I was at Expo West, which is a very large food show in February of 2025 and staying with a bunch of team members, uh, on the plant strong team. And we had the Rips big bowl concoction out for everybody. And we also had steel cut oats. This one guy, he put raw steel cut oats in his Rips big bowl and then started eating them. I'm like, what are you doing? And he's like, Oh yeah, I always do this with steel cut oats and now I'm doing it. So they're crunchy, but they're edible without cooking it. I never would have thought. So I'm going to try it right now. So I just ate some buckwheat. Yeah. Okay. So it's kind of chewy. Oh, oh yeah. And then, you know, you let it soak in the water. I mean, the milk for just a little bit, but yeah. Yeah. So it's similar. The buckwheat is similar, but I would say that the buckwheat kind of, you can, it's not, it's not as chewy and it kind of dissolves in your mouth nicely. Nice. Yeah. And his, but his nickname now, his nickname is now steel cut.
[31:07] I love it i love plant-based people we're the best they're the best they are totally okay so the topping here is is really nice because it has the crunch of the buckwheat i like to do cacao nibs um i'm not like pimping this brand or anything but this is just happens to be what i have i like the cacao nibs because i love chocolate and it gives it another nice little crunch and then the sesame seeds. So what I do, I'll just put this down very easy because I'm all just, I mean, I'm just about easy.
[31:40] So I have a little bit of the buckwheat in here and then I'll just add equal parts, cacao nibs, maybe a little bit more. And then I just have some sesame seeds here. And just toss those in. And then I just shake it around and then everything gets nice and mixed. And then boom, you have this ready to go to top the stuff with. So I just wanted to show that really quick because it's, it's super,
[32:17] it's an easy thing to, to do. And it really does kind up level this up level good word yes okay so let's talk about this i two things so i will make a bowl of this in the morning but if i am going to like pickleball i know you love pickleball i do too or if i'm going to the beach to go swimming or snorkeling or if i'm going like upcountry to the farmer's market on the weekends i love a mason jar full of this and so it's the same thing that I'm going to do in a bowl, but you can do this in layers and a mason jar. And it's very, it's, it's like one of the best things to take on the go. So that's also an option. I'm a big fan of mason jars. I don't know what I would do without them. I think most plant based people have a special place in their heart for the mason jar.
[33:09] Yes. Okay. So let's just, uh, I will put down my camera and I'll just show you kind of what I do. So I have this. Now, one thing I should mention and that I didn't really is that I eat this cold. So I don't heat this up. It really is more like eating cereal like you would find in a box, but not. I've tried it hot, but I don't like it as much. Interesting. And yeah, Yeah, we can talk more about that in a moment, but so here's the, the base. And then I like to load it up with fruit. So I have this cutting board here. If you have a, if any of your viewers have a cutting board that slides around, you're going to, I just have this little cloth that I put underneath and it keeps it from sliding. So I don't know if that's helpful for anyone, but it's, I used to be in the restaurant business. And so I have a lot of like restaurant hacks that I bring into my kitchen.
[34:13] So that's a really good, smart hack. Yes. Hit us with all the hacks you can. You've got it. Okay. So this is just some pear. Oh. Oh, and I, this is like the most perfect ripeness of pear right now. I'm getting great pears. I, you, I can't, pears don't grow on Maui. So I do have to buy them at mana market. Um, So here's just, is that a Bartlett pear? It is. Yes, it is. So, and again, I'm all about different textures. So this is a cute Hawaii banana. They're so small and cute.
[34:57] They're flavorful. They're so flavorful. And you know how some bananas taste like chalk? Oh yeah. Yeah. These are just sweet. It tastes like what a banana should taste like. Like they're just awesome and so i like to use lots of different fruit because again i love different flavors so that pear is kind of juicy and then the banana kind of has that, just that really sweet satisfying um you know mouthfeel and then i'm doing a star fruit this is star fruit i mean i don't this is a hawaii thing i just went to a friend's yesterday and they gave me like a huge bag of them. So I'm like, why not? If I have mangoes, I'll use mangoes. This is sort of citrusy and juicy.
[35:43] Yeah. And then you don't have, you don't have the, your, um, up-leveled toppings on there yet. Do you? No. Okay. Oh my. Okay. I'm getting ahead of myself. Yep. So this is okay. So here's one thing that I just love. So here's all the fruits we have the bananas the star fruit the blueberries and the pear and then i always take a lemon and do lemon zest on top because i heard that lemon zest is really good for breast cancer prevention nice and it just adds a really nice citrusy light little burst and this is um this is a meyer lemon i know that's kind of blown out but this is a a nice meyer lemon okay So that's the fruit part. So from there...
[36:38] I just happen to have some plant-strong milk. You sure do have some good taste. And I like lots of milk. Okay. And then from here, this topping goes on. And I'm generous with it. And if I want, I can do some walnuts. Just a little bit. And I like to do that just for a little added crunch. And I mean, why not? Right. You don't have to add this, but. I don't add it every day, but I enjoy it. Now, I've noticed you're pretty good at wielding that knife.
[37:27] Is that from years in the restaurant business? It is. Yep. So one thing, I can tell you a little trick. So a chef's knife is really one of, I only use like two knives. I use a serrated knife, a paring knife, which is like a smaller knife, and then a chef's knife. When you are cutting things a little trick here is to always keep the tip of the knife on the cutting board so if you're doing like this you're it's not as accurate and you won't be able to do it as easily so if you keep keep this tip and you just move the knife to the left and the food to the right. And when I do this, I'm, my fingers are like this. Yeah. And so the tip of the knife should never move. It's just, you can go to the right or to the left, but keep that tip down. That makes it a little bit easier, but yeah, I have a lot of, a lot of experience chopping and dicing. Okay. So here is this beautiful bowl. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah. Go ahead. Um, no, so this is, this is the bowl and I will eat all of this and it's cold. Everything is cold. The milk is cold. The porridge is cold, uh, the fruit and this bowl, when I eat this will keep me full until lunch. And so, uh, when do you usually eat that bowl? What time?
[38:57] About eight to eight 30. between 8 and 8.30 and then I usually eat lunch at about 12.30 yeah.
[39:06] And so tell me, seven mornings a week, how many of those mornings are you having this, you know, uh, hippie porridge bowl? Oh, I eat it every morning. Every morning. Okay. And how many mornings would you say you put different fruits on top, depending upon what's in season and what you have in the house? Every morning, it'll be different. Uh-huh. Yeah. Because, you know, as I've been taught that nutrient diversity is really important. And so I'm always trying to get a big variety of whole plant foods into my day. And so this is a way, you know, I mean, and don't forget, this has the kale in it. This has the omega in it. This has all that stuff that it cooked in. But then just adding different fruit is a way for me to like diversify it and add different things. And so some mornings I'll add mango or lily koi or apple or pears, all kinds of berries. If I don't have fresh berries, I'll add frozen berries and let it sit for a couple minutes and then eat it. So my bowl looks different every day.
[40:21] The fruit part of it looks different every day. And every time that I make it, I don't always make it the same. Like next time I make it, I'm going to use red rice because I just bought a bunch of red rice. So I'm change up the grains once in a while as well.
[40:37] So I didn't count as you went along, but I think that Will Balshowitz and Mr. Fiber Fueled and the American Gut Project would be very proud of you because you've probably got 15 different whole food ingredients that make up that bowl, if not more. Yeah, I haven't counted either, but it's a lot. There's a lot going on with this bowl. It's really impressive. And so do you know off the top of your head or do you have the breakdown of protein, fiber, you know, carbs, the macros and stuff? Yes, we do. And the only reason I know this is because in our recipe membership portal, we have nutrition information for all of our recipes. And we didn't have that for a long time. But as people were getting more interested in like tracking macros, we're like, okay, we need to add this. And so I do know, I wrote some of them down. It has, according to... Our nutrition information that is, it's pulled right from the USDA. Um, so it has 540 calories, 23 grams of fat, 26 grams of protein,
[41:53] 66 grams of carbs and 16 grams of fiber. Mm. Mm. Those are some pretty gorgeous looking macros. And I love the fiber there. 16 grams.
[42:06] Um absolutely wonderful um what are you planning on having for lunch today do you have that figured out yet um yes because i i batch all my food on the weekend and so i made um i just followed one of our meal plans and so on the one on the menu for today is some smoky paprika kale beans so So it's kind of like a chili, but it uses smoked paprika and a bunch of spinach. And I use some Rancho Gordo cranberry beans for the bean base. So it's this thick, wonderful chili. And then I love to serve it. I make a three-ingredient buckwheat bread. And I make this a couple of times a week. And it's a recipe that took about a year for me to get right.
[43:00] I like to toast two pieces of that bread, put it on a plate, and then just put the chili, put a ton of chili on top of the toast. And I feel like a cowboy and it's delicious. And the chili has so many veggies that I might have like some lettuce on the side because I don't know about you, but if I'm not eating something green with my lunch and dinner and even my breakfast, it feels incomplete to me. So whether I'm just chopping up some cucumbers or doing a handful of arugula, which I know you love, or some nice lettuce on the side, I'll usually just have some greens, but that's what I'm having for lunch today. It's all sorted. Yeah. And those Rancho Gorda beans are just incredible, aren't they? They are. Yeah. I love them. My favorite is the, have you tried the Mayo Coba beans?
[43:52] I don't think so. Yeah, I'm from New Mexico originally, and we have some like, you know, damn good New Mexican food. And those beans, I mean, you just need to make it, you know, cook them with water, a pinch of salt. And it's like the beans of my childhood. They're amazing.
[44:12] The beans of your childhood, just like the cereal of your childhood. It might be the title of my book. I don't know. So, Molly, I... I believe it or not, I haven't made your breakfast yet. I mean, it's criminal. So I'm going to do, I'm going to pull out the Instapot from my closet and I'm going to go get the ingredients and I'm going to, I'm going to make it. And, uh, and then I'll do a little post on it.
[44:45] So where, what's the best? Oh my God. So what's the best way for people to, to learn more about you and, And, you know, if they want to join any of your programs.
[45:00] Clean food dirty girl.com everything is there and i can give you the link to this recipe that's on the blog for free you can put in the show notes if you want or if you just go to the website there's a little magnifying glass in the right if you just click it and type porridge it'll pop up.
[45:20] And people can yeah people should make this it's the best so i have to tell you when i was first, you know messing around with this and making these iterations the lemon is so good by the way I just have to say that brightness of the lemon zest yeah yeah but so I released this recipe to the to our community and I got a lot of pushback they're like look I don't want to eat this cold first of all and I definitely don't want to do the kale and I'm like listen you just got to trust me Like it is when you've all put it together and when you experience it, you're going to be like surprised by how good it is. And so people reluctantly tried it and now people are hooked and they're like, wow, I would have never thought that I would be eating kale for breakfast or all of these ingredients in this one bowl. And people just love it. And it has really helped people, you know, stay really satisfied and satiated until their next meal. And so it has a bit of a cult following at this point. So once you try it, I think you're kind of going to be hooked. But the key is have it cold and do a bunch of toppings. And those are the things that really makes it like stand out.
[46:37] I can't wait. I can't wait. I have a, uh, a complete non sequitur for you because you live in Maui and you know, you, you have so much sunshine there. What do you do about, about protecting your skin? Do you wear long sleeves? Do you have a sunblock that you like? I'm just like, I'm torn what to do here. And I hate, I hate putting on sunblock cause I hate how it feels, but I know I probably should be using it more. So what do you do?
[47:06] It's a great, important question. And I don't know if you noticed, but I am quite fair. And when I tell people when I'm on the mainland or in somewhere else besides Hawaii, and I tell people I live in Hawaii, they're like, you don't look like you live in Hawaii because I'm really have very fair skin to fair complexion. And I am really, really careful because skin cancer runs in my family and I just have zero pigment. And so I have long sleeve rash guards. I have, when I play pickleball, I wear like a long sleeve, you know, shirt that has SPF on it, like designed for outside stuff. I am wearing hats all the time. I wear long pants when I can. When I go swimming, I wear my long sleeve rash guard always, and I will load up with sunscreen on my neck and on my legs. There is a sunscreen that I recently found called, it's the Badger brand. Yeah. And, you know, because there's so many sunscreens that just are not good, even if they say that they're good. And so this brand, Badger, has been around for a long time, but they make a sunscreen.
[48:19] I always used to say, if it's not kind of white, I don't trust it. Like if you're not kind of seeing some of the residue on, I don't know if it's going to work or not. But this one is really good. It's their sport one. And it's also like sweat proof. And so that one works really well. And it is a little bit white, but it doesn't make you look like you're wearing a costume or anything. And then for my face, I mean, I just put sunscreen on first thing in the morning after I wash my face. And I use a brand called MyShell, M-Y-C-H-E-L-L-E. And that's like a 30 SPF for my skin. And I do that even if I'm not going outside, I'll still do that because there's, you know, you still get raised from like the computer or the windows. And then when I go out, I'll put on a 50 SPF on my face. But I try to do like protection and just guard against the sun through clothes and hats as much as I can.
[49:13] Wow. You got it going on between doing everything there to protect your skin to that breakfast cereal and all the little things, including the omega-3 mix. Man, we all need to be as organized and thoughtful as you with what's going into our body and on our body. Well, thank you for that. And I feel like I have a lot to make up for and a lot of damage to make up for because I was not always like this. I used to abuse alcohol. I used to smoke cigarettes, all the like just chain smoking. I used to eat, you know, a ton of junk food. I did not move my body. So, you know, it's been about 10 years since I've been sober and cigarette free and, you know, all of that has kind of been put to rest 10 years ago. So I feel like I have this obligation to myself to live the cleanest life that I can and support my wonderful body and mind as much as I can. And so this is just the non-negotiables for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good non-negotiable. Really, really good.
[50:26] I know we're winding down here, but I just have another question for you. When you wake up in the morning, What are some of typically, what are some of your first thoughts? Oh, interesting. So I love getting up in the morning. I love waking up early.
[50:47] I'm always, I mean, for the past 10 years, my first thought is I'm so happy that I feel good. I'm so happy that I don't have a hangover. oh i mean still to this day that uh lights my whole body and mind up so i i think gratitude is the first thing and it's not that i try it's just that i get to wake up feeling good feeling clear feeling ready for my day um i'm always really pumped to get out of bed and to start my day. And it just, yeah, I go to gratitude first thing. Yeah, that's really powerful.
[51:28] All right. That's how I want to leave today with that feeling of gratitude. And speaking of which, so grateful that you came back on the show and shared the hippie porridge bowl with all of us. All right. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And then let me know. I mean, tag me, email me. I need to know. And Carrie too, I want to know what you and your team thinks because I love it. And I just, you know, I hope you love it. Don't tell me if you hate it though. I don't need to know if you hate it. Listen, I can tell you right now, I'm going to absolutely adore it. It's just, I guess my big question is, Is there a chance? Is there a sliver of a chance that this could replace my current Rips Big Bowl? That's the question. Ah, I see the hesitation. I don't think anything will ever replace that. You could just add it to your repertoire. Yes. Yes. Maybe on Saturdays.
[52:32] Deal. All right. Molly, give me the requisite PlantStrong fist bump on the way out. Plant strong, Molly. Plant strong. Woo-hoo. Go get them. Clean girl. I'm sorry. Clean food. Dirty girl. Clean girl, dirty food. Whatever works. Just eat the plants. Eat all the plants. There you go.
[52:56] My goodness gracious, doesn't that sound amazing? Molly's breakfast porridge hits all the notes. sweet, savory, crunchy, and the best of all, filling and nutritious. I want to extend a huge thanks to Molly for sharing her inventive porridge masterpiece. If you think you're ready to batch your breakfast like a pro and take your morning nutrition to the next level, give this recipe a try. I think you'll be glad you did. We'll be sure to put a link to it in today's show notes. Until next week, don't forget to have a little or a lot of fun with your meals and always, always keep it plant strong.
