Beware! How AM~Erica Spent this Ides of March

So anyway...

As we get this round of celebrations rolling, we had an ultimate Ultimate Pi Day yesterday (reminder HERE). And that's just the beginning...

These next several days are full of holidays!!

Today...though dark, is the infamous Ides of March.

Caesar didn't heed his warning in 44 B.C., on this day, and was stabbed in the back...and several other places...by people he thought were friends.

My family uses this day to kick off our salad season! Not accurate in feasting, but we do enjoy stabbing a fork into a good Chicken Caesar Salad. Wrong? Maybe...but we find it fitting.

With some crazy scheduling that has been entering into our lives this year, we are scaling our feasting back a bit & including apple slices, cubed cheese, and some Italian Bread.

I had hoped to work in an Orange Julius at some point...but it looks like we cannot do it this time. So hoping to makeup for that one tomorrow.

Oh! And as we all probably know by now, I must dress for the occasion! Amm-i-rite?

Yes...this is pretty much my staple Ides of March top. And I got this new headband for $5 that is the perfect topper!! So, I tried to look ready. I just stayed away from government buildings & such.

And now that this weird holiday is coming to a close, I look forward to St. Patrick's Day in a couple of days! One of my favorites!

Stay tuned...

God Bless, AM~Erica

AM~Erica's Ides of March is Just Fine

So anyway...

I really ENJOY CELEBRATING THINGS. But you might already know that. Amm-i-rite?

And you may know that I am willing for find things to celebrate. And it became a busy, busy feasting week...

Well, this is the second day of a HOLIDAY-TYPE RUN...

Yesterday, the first to start out the festival run being March 14th (3/14), is known as Pi Day! Get it? Math Pi...3.14? Yeah...that. So you could have a nerd party & do a bunch of math. Yes?

But I really don't like math. So I celebrate with pie...like pizza & stuffs.

So, we had pizza & some oatmeal cream pies. Could have done chicken pot pies & quiche, too...even moon pies! Oh! Moon Pies would be great! Moon...like space; Pi...like nerdness. OK...maybe next year...

But then we moved onto today...March 15th: the infamous Ides of March.

In 44 B.C., today wasn't a good one for Julius Caesar. A betrayal of "friends" led to him literally being stabbed in the back...and several other places. Yes, even by Brutus. ("Et tu, Brute?")

He even got a warning that was shoved into his hand on a piece of paper...that he never looked at before heading to the senate's steps. And we think about how differently history, and any way we live today, would have been affected by him reading that little note.

As we ponder this, and slowly do history research about it, the family enjoys a feast fit for Caesar! It's not all accurate, but still fitting:

So, we had an Orange Julius. So not historically correct...but...JULIUS! Duh!

Orange JULIUS from the mall...I got Orange Berry! It was delicious!

And then we get together to enjoy The Feast. And we try to include several of us in the prep. Because there's a lot of prep work...but so worth it!

There's the main part: Caesar Salad!! OK...still so not historically correct...but...CAESAR! Duh!

In that salad, we just use colorful (cuz I like color in my food stuffs) romaine lettuce mix (cuz...romaine sounds like Roman...yeah, that's where my brainy-brain goes) & I add in Italian Butter Grilled Cheese Croutons (RECIPE HERE). And then we top or toss it with Caesar dressing & parmesan.

Then, we marinade chicken breasts in Italian dressing for a couple of hours, and then hubby grills them up & then cuts them into strips. That chicken is amazing with our salad!

Though I have done some other FINGER SIDES FOR THE FEAST last year (and the rest of what we did), some of it changed due to time & variety. So I found on Pinterest some really adorable tiny antipasto kabobs...well, on a toothpick... But I'm the only one in the family who does olives & since we have a non-pork-eater in the house, we were limited on some of the additions I had seen to use. So, I did a grape tomato, a slice of mozzerella, a basil leaf & then placed a slice of turkey pepperoni to it. The drizzled all of those little cuties with the leftover Italian Butter I made for the croutons.

Teen Girl assembled these for me!

We also had our tried-and-true finger food sides of cubed marble cheese, grapes, and sliced Italian bread.

And, with this CRAZY MISSOURI WEATHER, today was around 80 degrees...and perfect for a salad feast!

And, of course you should know, I dressed for the occasion! Duh! No...I didn't toga up for the day...but I did put together my next best Roman-Inspired outfit:

Really...did you expect anything less??

And...we made sure to not visit any government building steps. We decided to cut out that part of the day. What? Too soon?

And...if we had gone, and then saw any of our friends there coming toward us...we would have run. No offense to any of you...just the awkward timing. I know you understand.

Also...why haven't there been some kind of sales this week around these days? C'mon! Pi off of whatever product or service on 3/14? Prices slashed on the Ides of March? What...too soon?

Now that we have feasted & avoided anything we needed to beware...time to take a day off to get our crazy-busy St. Patrick's Day feasting into place...

Stay tuned...

God Bless, AM~Erica

AM~Erica Makes Grilled Cheese Croutons Italian Style

So anyway...

I don't do too many foody posts here, but I wanted to share this one!

About a month ago was the Ides of March. And some of you may have seen the Caesar Feast I came up with. Well, I found a slight upgrade recently to try!

It turns out that April 12th is National Grilled Cheese Day. Interesting, right? Well, I heard some trivia on April 12th that the (grilled) cheese sandwich originated in Rome. I thought about just adding grilled cheese to the Caesar Feast...but then a lightbulb went off!

Grilled Cheese Croutons for the Caesar Salad (or just a different kind of grilled cheese)!

I wandered around Pinterest to see if I could find a grilled cheese crouton-type recipe. I found out that the croutons being used for soup were simply cubed up pieces of grilled cheese sandwiches. After that, I started coming across a lot of different grilled cheese recipes for the summertime being pinned.

So, here is my Italian Grilled Cheese Croutons with Italian butter:

1. Set oven to 450 degrees F

2. Mix in a small bowl for Italian butter:
1-2 Tbsp freshly ground black pepper
2 palmfuls crushed oregano
1 palmful crushed basil
1 palmful crushed parsley flakes
1 1/2 palmful garlic powder
1 palmful grated parmesan cheese
submerge in EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

3. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray & then use stale bread.

4. Take a short basting brush & "paint" the Italian butter onto one side of the bread.

5. Place the "butter" side down onto the cooking sheet

6. Place 1 slice of either provolone or mozzarella cheese onto the bread. (Sargento has a provolone/mozzarella blend, so that's what I used) Only use 1 slice since you do not want croutons to be over cheesy. If you are making just a sandwich, feel free to use 2 slices.

7. Repeat step 4

8. Place on top of cheese with "butter" side up

9. Once the baking sheet has been covered (the Italian butter lasted enough for 16 slices/8 sandwiches, which just fit my baking sheet), place in the oven for 6-8 minutes

10. Pull out of the oven when the sandwiches start to appear golden brown (mine ended up a hair darker on the bottom side after 7 1/2 minutes, but they turned out fine)

11. Begin to cube the sandwiches into 16 pieces. I began with a knife, but found a pizza cutter to be much more efficient

After I cubed my 8 sandwiches, I ended up with 128 grilled cheese croutons. I tossed them in with our Caesar salad for dinner.

Isn't it beautiful? And everything was SO yummy!

These can be done on the griddle or in a skillet, too...especially if you just want the Italian Butter Grilled Cheese sandwich without cubing them.

So delicious! Enjoy!!

Stay tuned...

God Bless, AM~Erica


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Update: 6/29/2012


Guess what?? I made this grilled cheese sandwich (so, two slices of cheese) & added a mini Caprese Salad to each one!

Pretty, huh? I took either a cherub or sunburst tomato, a small piece of mozzarella cheese, wrapped a basil leaf around them, skewered the combo with a toothpick & then brushed each mini salad with the Italian Butter.

So pretty, so cute...so tasty!