I have trouble eating meals when I’m suppose to. I’m certainly not a meal skipper (heaven forbid), but I’ve never really been into the tradition breakfast, lunch, dinner route. I tend to do my own thing, especially on weekends when I have some free time on my hands and an easily accessible kitchen. That’s exactly what happened this past Saturday, so I’ve decided to share those “meals” with all of you. Bonus points because I’ve got pictures of it all.
Happy What I Ate Wednesday Gang. Don’t forget to head over to Peas and Crayons to see what everybody else is eating these days.
Let’s break it down. Here’s what I threw down my throat on Saturday.
I woke up a little before 8 a.m. and after feeding my crazy cats, I had some coffee, and yes I did buy this based solely on the name alone. I am a sucker for good marketing. 
I’m rarely hungry when I first get up in the morning. In fact, the idea of eating straight away makes my stomach clench, and not in a good way. The Hubby on the other hand rolls out of bed and immediately falls into a cup of coffee and something edible. Not me though. I wait, sometimes hours, until I actually start to feel hungry or start getting hangry. I like to catch myself before the hangry phase because it’s better for all parties involved. Hence the smoothie, or food in liquid form, as I like to think of it.
Therefore, this happened around 10:30 or 11 a.m.. In the mix is frozen mango, a banana, orange juice and some strawberries.
It tided me over for about an hour, when I decided to make myself two fried eggs. Now these were consumed during what most people would call lunch time, but I scoff at lunch time. Here’s looking at you kid.
After lunch, second breakfast, mid-day snack or whatever you want to call it, I did some work around the house: vacuuming, paying bills, raking the lawn. When the rain forced me indoors, I figured it was time for another meal. I went with leftover penne pasta in a garlicky alfredo sauce stuffed with artichokes and black olives. This extra-large bowl of deliciousness happened around 3:00 p.m. It certainly wasn’t lunch time, but too soon for dinner, although dinner like proportions (and then some) were consumed.
It was really good, and I ate waaaaay too much, read this entire bowl. Do not be fooled by the pictures, this bowl is eight inches (hee, hee) the entire way around. It was certainly no single serving, and I ate every last drop to the point of being over stuffed. Oops. It happens, and it pretty much filled me up for the rest of the night.
But mama didn’t raise no fools, and I knew I would have to eat something else before calling it quits for the day. After hitting up the grocery store, working on some blogging stuff, I settled down with my final meal (dinner, evening snack, whatever floats your boat) around 8:30 p.m., and it was a dinner of epic proportions. Um, not really, but I did eat an apple (sliced), my last two vegan lemon squares and two handfuls of Annie’s White Cheddar Bunnies.
I’m pretty sure if you were to rearrange my meals, they’d add up to a full days worth of food, just not in the usual order. Then again, when do I ever do anything in the usual order? The answer is never, and I’m cool with that.
On a completely unrelated side note, there was a fella in the Mixed Martial Arts class yesterday, who apparently had taken one of my spinning classes last fall (I’m still not certified, although it’s on the Things To Do list). He told me my spinning class is “still the toughest spinning class he’s taken to date in Cleveland.” Booyah!
What have you been eating? Do you eat at “normal” meal times? What’s the last compliment you got from a random stranger?
The lemon squares look really good and I definitely eat like that often, too!
Yep, overeating happens doesn’t it. If I ration my food in the beginning (i.e. use a smaller bowl), then I’m fine. When I’m left to my own devices and my good judgment, then I run into issues. Oops. 🙂
Ha, you are just like my husband.. if I didn’t make him eat breakfast every day he would totally be cool w/ skipping it. I don’t know how y’all do it! My belly wakes me up wanting some sort of food.. usually eggs or a nice cold smoothie =)
I do like your breakfast choices though. Smoothie or eggs are the way to go.
Nice coffee! I’ve got to ask…. did it give you a “love buzz”?
I’m with you on breakfast. I wake up everyday with a sick-feeling tummy. I drink a smoothie and then usually grab something savory around 10:00. I’ll do the rest of my day’s meals ‘on time’ though.
My son read today’s blog post with me today and really wants that pasta. Are you going to be sharing the recipe? He immediately checked our pantry and to see if we had the ingredients (“We have penne and olives, mom, but not the choke stuff or the sauce!!”)
Oh my god, he’s so cute. I love it.
I actually got the pasta from a catering place in the neighborhood, where you can create your own pasta dish. I requested their alfredo sauce which is super garlicky (love, love, love), some artichokes and black olives thrown over some penne pasta. It’s always delicious and I’m sure the secret’s in the sauce.
Haha omg your writing in this post is cracking me up. & I’m totally like your hubbie, I am literally in zombie mode until I get a bite of food and a cuppa coff. My bf is like you though, he’ll wait hours & be fine, which I think is cray. Oh & that’s SO awesome about the guy telling you your spinning class was hard 😉
Thanks Jess, and here I thought this post wasn’t as funny as my usual stuff. Yeah that guy complimenting my spinning class pretty much made my week.
I’m actually on a pretty regulated eating schedule now, but it’s every three hours (on the dot!) and not what anyone would call “normal.”
My last random compliment: The cute boy working at Trader Joe’s said he liked my pin, which is a homemade 3″ button of a photograph of a guinea pig. I’ll post a photo sometime 🙂
That’s awesome to be complimented on a homemade pin, which also must mean you are clever and crafty. I like to think I’m clever, but crafty not so much. Kudos to you for having both skills.
I fully support eating what you want when you want as long as it’s got a healthy balance in there! That pasta looks incredible… I’m totally a sauce girl so when there is that much sauce I pretty much want to just dive in and eat for days. 😀
I know I love sauce too, and I’m all about a healthy balance. I also happen to think healthy eats are fabulous so it’s easy to do.
Haha I am just like your hubby- I wake up ready to eat some breakfast! Although my meals are pretty normal in terms of 3 meals + 1 or 2 snacks, I’m sure the timings are a bit late for the HLB:
Breakfast – 9.30
Lunch- 3 pm
Dinner- 8 pm
And snacks are thrown in depending on the day!
All your eats look delish! How are you finding your braces? More comfortable I hope!
That’s roughly when I eat too, especially on the weekends and usually I have snacks thrown in for good measure. The braces are getting better; just a pain. I’m counting down the days until they come off.
BOOYAH! That’s a great compliment re your spinning class–good for you girly!!!!!!! Ok and I NEED the recipe for that pasta–it looks AMAZING and I would definitely have eaten the entire bowl as well so I don’t blame you! LOL!
I actually got the pasta from a place in Lakewood called Italian Creations. They have great food and it comes in huge servings so this was dinner one night and then lunch/dinner the next day.
I have the weirdest meal times, too! Plus I love dinner for breakfast, breakfast for dinner, and whatever’s-in-the-fridge-on-top-of-lettuce for lunch. Except I AM like the hubs–I NEED FOOD the second I get out of bed, as I go from dead asleep to hangry in about five minutes.
(P.S. My salad is GROWING, I’ll be making the real deal–rather than leftovers-on-romaine–in no time!)
I’m so excited to see your little baby lettuces; they’re adorable. Are you getting ready to dig into some greens? At like midnight because that would adhere to our weird meal time hours.
I left for the weekend and came back to even taller greens. Okay, they’re still weeks away from being ready, but oh my gosh, as soon as they are? MIDNIGHT SALAD TIME.
I think it is a good thing that you listen to your body and eat when you’re hungry and don’t force yourself to eat when you’re not.
I often find that on weekends I am more relaxed with when I eat. I have more time, usually have a later breakfast and therefore a later lunch and so on.
Yep, on weekends my meal times are all over the place. But, if I’m hungry, I eat. Thanks for swinging by and saying hello.
I’m going to have to steal the word hangry. That sooo describes me when I haven’t eaten. 🙂
Steal away, especially since it’s not mine. I don’t even know where it originated from but I do know hangry ain’t pretty.
Did you get that coffee at a grocery store? My dad buys a type from a local shop called Love Buzz and he loves it!
I did get the coffee at Nature’s Bin, which is a whole foods kind of grocery store. It’s good stuff; your dad is a smart man.
I am almost always eat breakfast right when I wake up. If I am going for a early morning run I will do half a banana and save breakfast for after. Due to my work/grad class schedule my meals/snacks are oftern consumed at odd times. Your pasta dish looks great 🙂
Thanks Nicole. I bet incorporating meals around school/work times can be tricky.
Set meal times are for the weak! Haha I’ve been known to eat stir fry for breakfast and cereal for dinner. It all evens out in the end, right?
I think so, especially the stir fry for breakfast. That’s one I haven’t tried, but I may now.
I usually eat around the same time every day but depending on work schedule it sometimes gets thrown off. That penne with sauce looks so delicious, love that you put olives on it!
I love olives and artichokes so I add them to anything I possibly can. I imagine fitting meals in around the school/work schedule must be really tough.
Those lemon squares look soo good! And don’t worry about using a large bowl, I do the same!
The only problem, for me, with using a large bowl, is then I will eat the entire contents of the large bowl. Oh well, I ended up with a lighter evening meal as a result of being so stuffed. The pasta was fabulous,so it was totally worth it. 😉
I am not an “eat breakfast first thing” person either. I get my coffee then get to work on the computer. Usually I finally remember I’m hungry after I get off my exercise bike. The pasta sounds yummy. Did you post a recipe for that and I didn’t see it? Love artichokes and black olives. Curious how you made the sauce.
That’s me too Fran. I get my coffee and get working away on the computer. Based on reading your blog, I though you were probably similar too.
I didn’t post a recipe for the pasta because I didn’t make it. I got it from a small catering place in my neighborhood which has the most fabulous pasta, pizzas and salads. It was my little treat to myself. Although I have recreated it before with a garlicky alfredo sauce, some black olives and canned and quarter artichokes. Heat these ingredients in a sauce pan and then add your cooked pasta. Yummy.
During the week I eat at ‘normal’ times, but only because I can’t even attempt to work with small children in a classroom if I haven’t eaten breakfast and consumed coffee, and continue to maintain my blood sugar throughout the day.
On the weekends my timing is a lot more like yours: coffee for me straightaway, and then meals just sort of blend together into whenever I feel like eating (usually later than ‘normal’), but in the end I also think they add up to a whole day’s worth of food.
I also tend to eat a whole lot more between the hours of 7:00 and 10:00 PM than I do the rest of the day. I’m pretty sure I take in half of my food each day at night, no matter WHAT day it is.
What about from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. I bet you consume a lot of cold squash during those hours. 😉
I respect your decision to drink coffee and eat breakfast before dealing with a classroom full of small children. What you do is amazing.
Finally getting around to commenting on WIAW posts! I know, even though it’s just one day later, it feels weird not to comment on them as they come into my bloglovin reader…. Anyways—
Breakfast for me is when I get up, lunch follows a few hours later, then if I’m at home a snack a few hours after that, dinner…another snack. I think you get the picture 😀 For me it’s not really about the clock but just the time that I have in between my meals. If I eat my meals two hours or less apart then it’s stomach pain galore. And then there was the day when I wasn’t able to eat for 8 hours… But that was a different kind of stomach pain. Haha. Hangry.
Ooo…. I could totally dig into that bowl of pasta right now. It looks so creamy and carby (in this reference “carby” is equal to delicious, not “oh my gosh! carbs make you SO fat.” In case you were wondering the connotation 😉 )
I like your clarification on the word carby. Made me smile.
I’m still rooting for you and the GAPS meal plan. I hope it’s helping. 🙂
runny yolks! DROOL
Yep, I think it’s safe to say I have an egg edition.
My son and I can get up and go for hours without food. My spouse and daughter would do well to have a snack before waking up.
Left entirely to my own devices (not having to feed another human in the house all day) I eat at really weird times. Usually, though, I’m fixing food for someone who thinks it’s a normal eating time so I eat differently than my preferred times.
I like how you say they “would do well to have a snack before waking up.” My older brother is the same way so I can relate.
Oh those vegan lemon squares look fantastic!
Thanks; they were really good.
Haha, nice work, killer! I love giving/receiving compliments to/from strangers. I can’t remember the last one I got, but last night why at a restaurant with the man-friend, I stopped by a table on the way out and told a girl that I loved her hair! It was so funky…auburn/brown with blonde and green tips! She looked super cute so I thought she know! 😀
One of the things I’ve noticed since I started the whole Intuitive Eating shindig is that I am the weirdest person when it comes to mealtimes…well, actually I thought I was the weirdest…now I see I’m not alone! *sigh of relief* Most of the time I have a normal breakfast (because I’m like the hubby…I HAVE to have something in my mouth as soon as I roll out of bed…hmm, that’s what she said?), but then the rest of the day is just…whatever! Half the time, lunch is more like 2-3 different snacks and dinner is something that more resembles breakfast/dessert. Ha! Whatever…I eat what I want!
Oh and I just have to say…those eggs? That is some sensual frying action going on there…and in cast iron? I love you! And even though I’m not much on pasta, you totally have me wanting to shove my face in that bowl of alfredo! Lol
I think complimenting other women is huge. I try to do it often, whenever I notice something I like because it means a lot to others, especially women. It’s odd but I’d prefer a compliment from a woman more than a man maybe because we are so super critical it seems to mean more. Who knows.
I love your I eat what I want statement. It feels good, doesn’t it, especially when it includes eggs, and yes that is most definitely cast iron. It’s quite possibly my favorite way to fry them. It feels sacrilegious to use any other pan.
Oh shit, am I going to hell for frying in teflon?!! 😯 Dear God, forgive me, I was raised a heathen and know not what I do!!!
Compliments from woman totally trump the ones from mean because I KNOW if a woman speaks up it’s true…and well, most of the time I’m just wondering what the man’s hidden agenda is! Mmmhmm, I see you covering up that ring finger you perv!
Too funny.
“Teflon!” she exclaims loudly. You need to get yourself to an antique store stat and pick up some cast iron skillets. The used ones are best because they’re already “seasoned.” For reals. On this I do not kid.