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Just four more days for the  

Musical Gardener Contest

 

Boxing day was another one of those great relaxing family days.  My brother and Abby left for home, a six hour trek, but arrived safely mid afternoon.  That would be about the same time, the Missus' family started to arrive.  We had a crowd of fourteen for supper, for our yearly cheese fondue.

Fondue is not something I would do with just anyone - you do have to know people well enough to push and shove (well not really), but you have to get over the constant "excuse me please" as you reach for yet another meatball, and share the cheese pot with five other people.

We have an electric fondue pot, which is great for accurate temperature control - cheese sauce burns readily if too hot, and coagulates into goop if not warm enough.

My cheese sauce is easy:

• 500 mL tub of low fat sour cream
• 1/2 kg of Cheez Whiz or any other processed cheese spread
• 1/2 kg of old cheddar cheese, grated

Just mix the three ingredients and melt in the fondue pot, stirring constantly, until thick and gooey.  Then just turn heat down to simmer.

For dipping items we choose from the following:

• red, yellow, orange, green peppers
• fresh button mushrooms
• cauliflower
• broccoli
• fried baby potatoes
• meatballs
• ham
• sausage
• pepperoni
• pumpernickel bread

Cut everything up into bitesized pieces, and serve on platters.  Easy, easy, easy and most everyone can find at least a couple items they like.  Only problem is, because you don't actually fill your plate, but just graze, all of a sudden you hit that point where you realize you have just overate - welcome to holiday feasting!

Silly me, I forgot to snap any pictures, anyway, this will give you the idea.

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So we are drawing to the end of the year.  I want to spend my next few blogs, reviewing the year.

Blogger stats are interesting things - not sure what I should take from them.

Professional Development Day - Smartboard Technolo... 1078 views
We Celebrate Our First Ever Chinese New Year                679 "    "
Our Foreign Exchange Students - A Cultural Experie...       452 "    "
2011 Resolutions Revisited                                                176 "    "
Melodia Monday                                                               120 "    "
Off To The Slopes Continued                                               89 "    "
Twenty One Years Ago Today                                              85 "    "
And Two Shall Be One                                                        83 "    "
Paraprosdokian Sentences                                                   80 "    "
My First Teaching Practicum - What I Learned From...        79 "    "

So there are my blogs that I have had the most views on for the year.   Sadly I note, there is not a single gardening related article, and only one musical.........and I call myself the Musical Gardener.  It is interesting to note that most of the popular blogs are teaching related.  I guess if I were really trying to grow viewing numbers, I should be looking at expanding these themes.

Tomorrow I will examine what I felt were my ten best written or photographed blogs.  Strangely, I don't think you will see any repeats from this above group.  We'll see.

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The Daily Quest

This is a daily feature on The Musical Gardener blog. Below is a question, or puzzle that will change day by day. Do not use the comment section of the blog for your answer. 

Answer to Yesterday's Puzzle:  P A S S N O W

                                                            Q U  I T W  I  N

                              A R E A V I D

                                        S T A R I S K 

And the holiday word was STAR.

Today's Puzzle:

Whatzit

What is this photo of?

 

Please respond with your answer to the email below. I apologize but you will have to type my email address in manually (I'm attempting to avoid spammers).

And that's about all I have to say for today.

Musings and Meanderings from the Musical Gardener.