Cheesy Tomato Basil Soup & Southwest Breakfast Wrap!

Perfect meal for that Sunday Brunch!

Cheesy Tomato Basil Soup!

Ingredients:
2 28-oz. cans of diced tomatoes
1 yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon olive oil
3 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup of plain Greek yogurt or light sour cream
1 cup cheese
2 Tablespoons basil
2 teaspoons of oregano
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:
1. Place olive oil in large pot with onions, cook until tender, add garlic.
2. Add cans of tomatoes and vegetable broth.
3. Stir in the basil, oregano, sugar, salt and pepper, put lid on and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Add in yogurt and cheese at the end.
5. For a smooth texture place in an immersion blender or food processor to puree the soup!

Southwest Breakfast Wrap!
This is just something Kevin and I whipped together!

Ingredients:

2 flour tortillas
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 bag frozen shredded hash-browns, dethawed
4 eggs
4 slices of ham
3 Tablespoons shredded cheese

Directions:

1. Heat up olive oil in a frying pan.
2. Mix up eggs in a bowl.
3. Cook up hash-browns, than add ham.
4. When they are cooked up to your liking add eggs.
5. When eggs are almost complete add cheese and mix it all up.
6. Serve on tortilla.

Slovenian Word of the Day:
Tortilja meaning Tortilla

PEACE & LOVE,
Kevin & Amanda

Broccoli Cheddar Soup!

Delicious creamy hearty vegetable soup that will make you come back for more!

Broccoli Cheddar Soup!

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons butter
2 cups broccoli, chopped
1/2 cup carrots, finely chopped
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 celery stick, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 large potato, peeled and chopped
4 cups vegetable broth
1 Tablespoon flour
2/3 cup milk
2 cups shredded cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Melt the butter in a large soup pot
2. Add onions, carrots, and celery, saute over medium heat until tender.
3. Add garlic and cook for 2 more minutes.
4. Add vegetable broth and potatoes, bring water to boil and cook until potatoes are tender.
5. Mix flour with some warm water and mix until smooth, than add to soup to thicken.
6. Add milk and broccoli and cook until broccoli is tender.
7. Add cheese and then serve! :)

Slovenian Word of the Day:
Brokoli meaning Broccoli 

PEACE & LOVE,
Kevin & Amanda

Chicken Noodle Soup & White Grilled Cheese!

Baby its cold outside! Perfect time for soups! and comfort food!

Probably Kevin's two favorite thing I make, my chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese! He will sit there and eat 5 bowls of soup in a row! 

Chicken Noodle Soup!

Ingredients:
2 cups egg noodles
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Whole cut up Chicken
2 Carrots 
3 Celery stalks and some leafs for garnish
1 Medium Onions
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Tablespoon Chicken Bouillon
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Pepper
1/2 teaspoon Cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons Parsley
3 Tablespoons Flour

Directions:
1. Place chicken into the pot cover with about 4 quarts water and bring to boil.
2. When water starts to boil, turn heat to low and simmer chicken for 30 minutes.
3. The fat from the chicken will start to foam at the top of the water, strain this out.
4. Remove chicken from water an allow it to cool down a bit.
5. With a fork shred the chicken and peal from the bone as much as you can. Set the meat aside.
6. Place the bones back in the water and allow them to simmer for 45 minutes. This is where most of the flavor will come in!
7. While the bones are simmering, dice up the carrots, celery/celery leaves, onion and garlic.
8. Remove bones then throw the carrots, celery, onion and garlic into the pot.
9. Then add the bouillon, salt, pepper, cayenne, parsley.
10. Bring a separate pot to boil for the noodles. I like to cook them separately because they soak up to much water if I place them directly in the soup.
11. Add the chicken back to the pot.
12. When noodles are finished strain and add them to the pot.
13. Mix the flour and some warm water and mix together in a separate bowl until smooth then mix into the soup. This will make the broth nice and thick!
14. Allow to simmer for about 5 minutes and then serve!


White Grilled Cheese!

Ingredients:
-2 slices whole wheat bread
-2 slices of white cheddar cheese
- Gouda cheese 
-Butter

Directions:
1. Heat Skillet
2. Place the cheeses between the bread.
3. The best way to make the perfect grilled cheese is to butter the outsides of each piece of bread of the sandwich, then place on skillet and grilled each side until golden!
4. Place a lid over the sandwich to heat throughout and melt the cheese.

Slovenian Word of the Day:
Korenje meaning Carrot

PEACE & LOVE,
Kevin & Amanda

Sistine Chapel!

 Images from our walk inside the Vatican to the Sistine Chapel! Sistine Chapel is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City.

Facts on the Sistine Chapel:
1.  The Sistine Chapel was built by a Pope named Pope Sixtus the Vl, hence the name Sistine Chapel.

2. The Sistine Chapel was built to house the Cardinals while they deliberated on who should become the next Pope.

3. The famous chimney that releases black smoke telling us the Pope has died and white smoke telling us we have a new Pope is set up in the Sistine Chapel? You can see the marks where it sits towards the back right of the chapel.

4. No artist in history suffered as much as Michelangelo suffered in the 4 years it took him to complete the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He suffered with his knees, back and neck and he still managed to live to be 89 years old.

5. Michelangelo painted the Last Judgement (the front wall of the Sistine Chapel) 28 years after he finished the Sistine ceiling.

6. The Sistine Chapel was completely cleaned between the years 1980 to 1999. It was paid for by the camera company Fuji Film. Fuji Film now own all copyright to the paintings, and that is why there is no photography allowed in the Sistine Chapel.

7. Michelangelo’s enemy, Rapheal, was originally asked to paint the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel but refused. He suggested Michelangelo knowing he was a sculpture and not a painter.

8. Pope Julius ll (the Pope that commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel) sold Indulgences in order to pay Michelangelo for his work. Selling Indulgences meant that people could pay money to get time off Purgatory.

9. Michelangelo was intimidated by the scale of the commission, and made it known from the outset of Julius II's approach that he would prefer to decline. He felt he was more of a sculptor than a painter, and was suspicious that such a large-scale project was being offered to him by enemies as a set-up for an inevitable fall. For Michelangelo, the project was a distraction from the major marble sculpture that had preoccupied him for the previous few years.

10.  During occasional ceremonies of particular importance, the side walls are covered with a series of tapestries, the originals of which were designed for the chapel by Raphael and depict events from the Life of St. Peter and the Life of St. Paul as described in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.

11. The southern wall is decorated with the Stories of Moses, painted in 1481–1482. Starting from the altar, they include:

• Moses Leaving to Egypt by Pietro Perugino and assistants
• The Trials of Moses by Sandro Botticelli and his workshop
• The Crossing of the Red Sea by Cosimo Rosselli, Domenico Ghirlandaio or Biagio di Antonio Tucci
• Descent from Mount Sinai by Cosimo Rosselli or Piero di Cosimo
• Punishment of the Rebels by Sandro Botticelli
• Testament and Death of Moses by Luca Signorelli or Bartolomeo della Gatta

12. The northern wall houses the Stories of Jesus, dating to 1481–1482. They include:

• Baptism of Christ by Pietro Perugino and assistants
• Temptation of Christ by Sandro Botticelli
• Vocation of the Apostles by Domenico Ghirlandaio
• The Sermon on the Mount, attributed to Cosimo Rosselli
• The Delivery of the Keys by Pietro Perugino
• The Last Supper by Cosimo Rosselli

View of the Vatican outside the window our our walk! 
13. The Chapel is a high rectangular brick building, its exterior unadorned by architectural or decorative details, as common in many Medieval and Renaissance churches in Italy. It has no exterior facade or exterior processional doorways, as the ingress has always been from internal rooms within the Apostolic Palace (Papal Palace), and the exterior can be seen only from nearby windows and light-wells in the palace.

I love the trees in Rome!

14. Eastern Wall

• Resurrection of Christ by Hendrik Van den Broeck (1572) over Domenico Ghirlandaio's original
• Disputation over Moses' Body by Matteo da Lecce (1574) over Luca Signorelli's original

The Popes Crosses!

The Popes Bibles!

Cappella Sistina that a way!

Inside the Sistine Chapel! It was the most amazing work of art to see ever! The detail was incredible! Everything looked so real!

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, the most famous painting found at the Sistine Chapel and also one of the most famous paintings in the world! Michelangelo was a genius! The pure enormity of the work and the impression it leaves upon you is hard to forget.  

The way out!

Italian Word of the Day:

Sorprendente meaning Amazing/Astonishing

PEACE & LOVE,
Kevin & Amanda

St. Peter's Basilica!

Images from Inside the Vatican (St. Peter's Basilica)! The coolest church in the world! For images of the exterior please go back to Vaticano Esterno!

Saint Peter's Basilica, is a Late Renaissance church located within Vatican City. Designed principally by Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, St Peter's is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and remains one of the largest churches in the world.

While it is neither the mother church of the Roman Catholic Church nor the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, Saint Peter's is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic sites. It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world" and as "the greatest of all churches of Christendom"

In Roman Catholic tradition, the basilica is the burial site of its namesake Saint Peter, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus and, also according to tradition, the first Bishop of Rome and therefore first in the line of the papal succession.

Tradition and some historical evidence hold that Saint Peter's tomb is directly below the altar of the basilica. 

Because of its location in the Vatican, the Pope presides at a number of services throughout the year, drawing audiences of 15,000 to over 80,000 people, either within the Vatican Basilica, or in St Peter's Square.

After the crucifixion of Jesus in the second quarter of the 1st century AD, it is recorded in the Biblical book of the Acts of the Apostles that one of his twelve disciples, Simon known as Peter, a fisherman from Galilee, took a leadership position among Jesus' followers and was of great importance in the founding of the Christian Church.

Dipping the rosaries I got into the Vatican holy water blessed by the pope!

The entire interior of St Peter's is lavishly decorated with marble, reliefs, architectural sculpture and gilding.

The central feature is a baldachin, or canopy over the Papal Altar, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The sanctuary culminates in a sculptural ensemble, also by Bernini, and containing the symbolic Chair of St Peter.

Climbing to the top of Michelangelo's dome will add 491 stairs to your exercise log. And it's a scary climb "“ in some spots, the "staircase" is so narrow there's no room for railings, so there's a rope that runs down the middle for you to hold on to. And sometimes, it's both narrow and incredibly slanted.

The tomb of St. Peter!

Bernini finished the 96-foot-tall baldacchino (the canopy-like thing over the altar) in 1633 and it's the epitome of opulence, which it was heavily criticized for at the time. It's said that the bronze that makes up the baldacchino was taken from the roof of the Pantheon, which is another thing Italians weren't too thrilled about.

It is believed by a long tradition that Peter, after a ministry of about thirty years, traveled to Rome and met his martyrdom there in the year 64 AD during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero. His execution was one of the many martyrdom's of Christians following the Great Fire of Rome.

It's an incredible church!

The Alter of St. Joseph in the left transept.

Floor vents where you can see below!

The marble floors!

There's a door that is only opened for holy years. It's called, appropriately, the Holy Door. They're only opened in certain years "“ Jubilee years "“ and people who pass through them receive a plenary indulgence. A better Catholic than I can explain what a plenary indulgence is.

Body of Pope John XXIII (d. 1963) displayed in the right transept. There are 100+ tombs at St. Peter's, which includes 91 popes, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II and Swedish Queen Christina who abdicated the throne to convert to Catholicism.

Rule to know if you would like to visit: Your knees and shoulders must be covered.

Italian Word of the Day:
Chiesa meaning Church

PEACE & LOVE,
Kevin & Amanda