We lopped the ears off a few dozen hippity-hoppers so you and your kids will know just what's under the wrapping.

They're cheesy, cheap and classic. What are talking about? Casseroles, of course! In this brand-new series food writer and blogger Emily Farris, author of "Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven" crafts tasty new casseroles exclusively for Slashfood readers. Green Eggs and Ham is her premier dish -- just in time for Easter.

As a kid, I never understood why Easter dinner was called "dinner" if it happened at noon. Luckily, one of the great things about being an adult is that we can make our own rules and name our own meals. And because I still can't bring myself to call a meal that happens that early "dinner," this year I'm hosting Easter brunch.

Am I making a 10-pound ham and scrambling three-dozen eggs while my guests drink free-flowing mimosas? Nope, this thing is happening potluck style. Like most people I know, I can't afford to host lavish brunches (not to mention dinners!), but wanted my meal to incorporate the different elements of Easter and, well, be a little brunch-y. So green eggs and ham it was, with eggs, ham, spinach, biscuits and my favorite thing in the world: cheese.

After a bit of experimentation, I wound up with a sort-of upside-down quiche with a biscuit crust, and who wouldn't go crazy for that? Although it'd be a wonderful meal for Easter brunch or supper, it's also a great way to use up that leftover Easter ham. Regardless, it's the sort of thing that would make Dr. Seuss -- or the Easter Bunny -- proud.

We realize we may seem a little holiday-fixated around here. But one Easter has yet to come: Orthodox Easter, which falls on this coming Sunday, April 19. The use of two calendars often results in different timing in Western Easter's and Orthodox Easter's arrivals, which makes the day truly a movable feast.

Why is this worth a certain amount of hoopla? Well, look at the hunger pang-inducing bread shown above. One of the centerpieces of the Greek Orthodox Easter table, tsoureki paschalino (tsoo-REH-kee pahs-khah-lee-NO), or Greek Easter bread, is typically baked on Holy Thursday and traditionally shaped in a braid around an Easter egg. (The deep red dye symbolizes the crucifixion.) Tsoureki, a light yeast bread sometimes sweetened with a light touch of orange or almonds, has an airy, eggy texture similar to challah. A similar bread known as pinza is a mainstay on Italian Easter tables.

Within the Greek Orthodox church, Easter is considered by many to be the holiest day of the year. For many celebrants the period of Lent is one of self-discipline and self-purification during which one might refrain from treats or certain animal products. Additionally, on some days (traditionally Wednesdays and Fridays during the first weeks of Lent and every day during Holy Week) both wine and olive oil are also forbidden. The first post-Lenten meal is served after midnight Mass on Holy Saturday, where the traditional meal consists of mayeritsa (a soup made from the internal organs of the Easter lamb) and the deep maroon-dyed eggs that are part of the tsoureki.

Tsoureki is available in Greek bakeries; try this one, which ships its tsoureki.

Ever whip up a dish that's so madly yummy you wanna feed it to everyone you've ever met? This is one of those.

Yup, Easter's already hopped on by, but who says that's the only ham-appropriate occasion? We'd unexpectedly received a smoked, bone-in ten-pounder as lagniappe for being loyal grocery store shoppers, and while we were old hands at prepping its hard, salty country cousin, we'd never actually baked and glazed a city ham. We've long been inspired by Aretha Franklin's ginger ale doused Queen of Soul Ham and have heard tell of a Coca-Cola ham or two, though have never had the pleasure of sampling one.

A tad loath to leave the house and brave the holiday supermarket fray, we took stock of what was on hand. Diet drinks weren't gonna cut the mustard, husband would flip if we drained his precious Pepsi stash, tonic was a tad depressing, then lo and behold -- Cheerwine! We'd hauled back cases of the distinctive cherry soda when last we hit the Tarheel State, and had been holding out for a special occasion to dip into the stash.

Sure, it wasn't the cane sugar based Retro Cheerwine (which we can't find to save our lives!), but it kept the ham miraculously moist through the initial bake and cooked down into a luscious, fruity glaze, which balanced quite well with the ham's salt, a kiss of bourbon, a quick blaze of mustard and the deep, dark tang of pomegranate molasses.

Can't find Cheerwine in your neck of the woods? Swap in a full-sugar dark cherry soda like Stewart's Black Cherry Wishniak, Boylan's Black Cherry or Jones' Cherry. Cheers!

Get the Cheerwine Ham recipe after the jump.

Got more Easter candy than you can deal with? Don't gorge and eat it all, don't save it 'til it goes bad and definitely don't throw it away! Get crafty in the kitchen and re-use it.

Here at last is the final installment of 5 Easter Candies in 5 Days before we send you off with a sweet adieu for the weekend. It's worth keeping in mind that these treats can be made any time of year. In fact, the darling flowers and bunnies from "The Ultimate Candy Book" shown above are actually found in the "Halloween Candy" section, but are the "Easter" variation. Confusing, we know ... but deliciously confusing. It strangely makes sense because the taste of these pretty blooms will remind you instantly of an autumnal treat -- candy corns.

Regardless, the treats are delish, and this recipe makes a firm sugary mixture that can be molded into nearly any pastel configuration for the Easter basket or springtime candy bowl. Press it into molds for an assortment of cute bunnies and chicks for a perfect family afternoon project. The candies come together much like fondant truffles, but this recipe doesn't take a lot of fuss, just a little help. Four or six hands are better than two, so get some kids, get cookin' and have fun!

Just as April showers bring May flowers, so do the hard-boiled eggs that arrive via Passover seder or an Easter egg hunt bring us, well, a lot of hard-boiled eggs. What to do with them all?

Many of those who celebrate Easter open a lunch box the first Monday thereafter to be confronted with a big scoop of egg salad. And while that's always an option -- as is the Cobb Salad that centers many an April luncheon -- there are recipes out there beyond the standards. So hide your eggs and eat them too.

First, though, safety is critical. According to the USDA, Easter eggs are safe to eat after the hunt provided you follow a few basic guidelines: Use food-safe coloring to dye the eggs and refrigerate them within two hours of boiling them. Boiling an egg removes a protective coating that occurs naturally on the shell, which leaves the shell vulnerable to bacteria. After the hunt, discard any eggs whose shells have cracked or that nestled in a bacteria-friendly environment such as dirt, hay or anywhere accessible to pets. Don't keep hard-boiled eggs away from the fridge for longer than two hours and use them within seven days of boiling them.

Beyond the jump is a delicious recipe for using those safely-handled eggs. (Hint: It's a salad, but it's not egg salad).

It's easy to be mesmerized by decadent, complex flavors. Sometimes, though, the sweetest surprise is one that basks in simple, nostalgia-inducing basics.

Peanut butter Chocolate Eggs are a staple of the classic Easter basket. Nestled amongst the malted milk balls, cream eggs and bunnies, they are also a mystery: Seemingly innocuous chocolate conceals a treasure of nutty, buttery flavor. Some might take these treats for granted -- especially in their store-bought incarnation -- but we reckon once candy-lovers taste this incredible homemade variety they may not be able to go back to the bag.

From chocolate bunnies to bright, chipper Peeps, certain candies stick with us from childhood. That doesn't mean an Easter basket has to be free of adult-friendly, finger-licking flavor though. Why not parry the chocolate onslaught with bright and delicious citrus?

En route to a sugar coma this holiday, consider lemon: These white-chocolate lemon truffles are light, bright and fit well within the holiday color scheme. Though a tad time-consuming, they're well worth the effort. Just imagine biting through a bright, thin layer of silky white chocolate to get a tart burst of lemon -- it's our sprightly homage to the decadent Lindor truffle.

Easter never tasted so good!

Not all candy-making is a science involving a delicate dance of temperature and time. One Easter candy, in fact, can be quite fun -- fun to make, fun to eat, and fun to play with. You know what I'm talking about -- the cute, adorable, and delicious Peeps.

While many candies have devoted fans, nothing seems to inspire the fun and frivolity of the Peep. These little marshmallow suckers inspire an insane following. The blog Unlikely Words found just about every Peeps-themed site of note on the Internet -- pickled Peeps, Presidential Peeps and even anti-Peeps. Even better is the annual contest held by The Washington Post in which people diorama the heck out of their Peeps. We're talking everything from excellent movie recreations like The Wizard of Oz and Ghostbusters to an awesome plumber Peep.

They're almost too good to recreate yourself ... almost! You can still go out and buy your beloved chicks and bunnies, but why not whip up some pals for them as well?

Candies can seem like a foreign substance to home cooks -- delicious, sugary concoctions that might have been whipped up by a magician. Hard, soft, chewy, tart, sweet, opaque or translucent, the incredible variety of shapes, sizes, flavors and textures can seem both unreal and a little intimidating, especially with Easter candy. Chocolate eggs that mimic real ones? That's gotta be magic.

The thing is -- while it seems other-worldly, candy making is perfectly within anyone's grasp. You can make almost any candy you conceive of with just a little time, patience, perseverance and creativity -- and Easter is the perfect time to start! That being said, a lot of candy recipes make it all seem deceptively easy, as if candy making is as simple as making a sandwich or whipping up a pie. Some really are that easy, but some are more on the scale of delicate art.

To start you on the path towards becoming a candy-making dynamo, I'm going to spend the week sharing Easter recipes with you. All have been filtered through me -- a woman who hasn't made candy since childhood.

After an uphill battle, I've filtered out the hassles and now have five candies that can make Easter all the sweeter. First up: Molding chocolate into tasty little candies.

Easter is almost upon us -- the wonderful holiday for excellent sweets and a proliferation of dyed, hard-boiled eggs. But rather than direct you to chemicals and pricey little packages to color your eggs this year, check out the video above, courtesy of Curbly.

They've taken a natural approach to egg coloring and offer some excellent techniques for getting both simple and fancy looking eggs with a mixture of all-natural ingredients -- many of which you can find in your kitchen. They might not be the dynamic, pastel colors that you can get from a box, but I love the great effects they get with simple additions like vegetable oil, wax and PVC tape. The video outlines just how they do it, and you can check out a text version here.

If you have any other all-natural color suggestions, please leave them in the comments below. Happy coloring!

A Foodie's Notes on the Vernal Equinox:

We very rarely had snow where I grew up, but as I stood at my grandmother's apron strings, I was taught to respect the turning of the seasons.

Winter was cold enough for the warming comfort food most of us still associate with it -- steaming bowls of soup, pot roast in rich gravy, hot coffee and cake to go with it.

Summer meant barbecue, soft drinks ("pop" to grandma, and we never got it except at cookouts) and pies bubbling with the best of the summer fruit while less perfect specimens were packed into canning jars by an assembly line of women working in the basement of the church.

Autumn was pumpkin, apples and turkey as we got ready for Halloween and Thanksgiving. And spring ... well, spring was getting ready for Easter.

On the weekend of the Equinox, my grandmother changed all of the household linens -- sheets to tea towels -- from winter's cream and evergreen to her favorite shades of sky blue and butter yellow.

That Monday, she set up the glass pots with thermometers that clipped onto the sides, steel baking sheets that unrolled like April thunder and vials of curiously intense flavor extracts that heralded Easter candy-making. Always planning, (Depression-era housekeepers needed no time management coaching), she made candy in the mornings before turning her attention to lunch and the afternoon errands.

Keep reading about why a chiffon cake is an important statement of spring awakening after the jump.

I'm not the biggest fan of using food in art (unless you or someone else is going to eat it all), but oh, how I love Easter Time. Why? That big ol' bunny we know brings not only the insidiously delicious Mini Eggs, but also The Washington Post's Peeps contest. Did you catch it last year? It asked for shoebox dioramas showing Peeps in different worldly scenarios -- historic, current, or future events. Some were real life (like the peep-o-suction image Marisa shared), some were historical (like Marpeep Antoinette), and some went Hollywood, like the wonderful Reservoir Peeps, or the above Psycho Peeps.

Simply come up with a scene (they say there's possible extra points for punny goodness), create your diorama, get some good photos, and send 'em in by 11:59 PM on March 15. But be sure to keep it in tact. If you're a finalist, the paper will get the diorama picked up for a professional photo shoot before semifinalists and winners are revealed on Easter Sunday.

Create away!

As a dedicated Slashfoodie, you've already noticed that for Valentine's Day, we at Slashfood wrote a lot about such expressions of romantic appreciation as were appropriate for general readership. We introduced you to chocolate from Askinosie, Dagoba and Green & Blacks. Hopefully you're not too chocolated-out after the weekend for just one more bite. Because if the chocolate is Escazu, you will want to make room.

Escazu is a town in Costa Rica and a chocolatier in Raleigh, North Carolina. According to the Escazu website, chocolatier Hallot Parson formed Escazu Artisan Chocolates after travels through Venezuela and Costa Rica, including visits to the cocoa farms. Thus was born -- perhaps more accurately bloomed -- the vision of artisinal chocolate executed with respect to chocolate's Latin American heritage.