Cleveland Sports Forum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSVfLNCW4Fs

Rusty, thanks for the link back to this classic.

"Georgy Girl"

I very rarely eat red meat, but certainly will if I have a craving for it. I'm just not going to have it simply because I can't think of anything else to eat. It's been in the 20's and 30's here most of the last several evenings and I was craving something hearty with good red wine. I found this easy recipe for Beef Stroganoff (when you start, it's much easier than it looks at first glance) and loved it and it was well received last evening.

I served it over 8 oz. of the "No Yolk Egg Noodles".

The only two minor changes I made were that I used fresh mushrooms and had them with the beef and "gravy" for the final 30 minutes before whisking in the sour cream and white wine. My wife was later than expected from the gym and errands so I did hold it on low for an extra 30 minutes and the beef ended up being "melt in the mouth," no knife required.

I always use "Smart Balance" in cooking instead of butter.

I did select a beef chuck roast of about 2 1/2 pounds and was resolute about trimming away the fat so the end result for the stroganoff ended up being about 2 pounds of very lean beef.

I paired this with a local Syrah, and it was everything I was looking for.





Original Recipe Yield 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients

2 pounds beef chuck roast

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

4 ounces butter

4 green onions, sliced (white parts only)

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed beef broth

1 teaspoon prepared mustard

1 (6 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained

1/3 cup sour cream

1/3 cup white wine

salt to taste

ground black pepper to taste





Directions

Remove any fat and gristle from the roast and cut into strips 1/2 inch thick by 2 inches long. Season with 1/2 teaspoon of both salt and pepper.

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and brown the beef strips quickly, then push the beef strips off to one side. Add the onions and cook slowly for 3 to 5 minutes, then push to the side with the beef strips.

Stir the flour into the juices on the empty side of the pan. Pour in beef broth and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Lower the heat and stir in mustard. Cover and simmer for 1 hour or until the meat is tender.

Five minutes before serving, stir in the mushrooms, sour cream, and white wine. Heat briefly then salt and pepper to taste.

Cities where jobs will (and won't) be in 2012

Cities in Florida top the list of who is hiring, Frenso is at the other end of the spectrum

In Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla., employment has gotten a big boost from Legoland Florida, the theme park employing 1,100 people. The are also has several other job engines.
By Susan Adams

Though Florida was hard hit by the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, and unemployment in the state sits 1.5 percent above the national average at 10.1 percent, in the first quarter of 2012, employers in two of Florida’s metropolitan areas are planning to increase their workforces at a rate that outpaces every other metro area in the country, according to employment services firm Manpower Group’s latest employment outlook survey, released earlier this month. In Cape Coral-Fort Myers, and in Lakeland-Winter Haven, a net 17 percent of employers plan to add employees in the first quarter of next year. Two other Florida metro areas, Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, make it into Manpower’s top 15, both with a 12 percent net hiring outlook.

To gauge companies’ plans going forward, Manpower surveyed 18,000 employers in 100 metro areas. Manpower used a research firm that questioned hiring managers and human resource professionals by phone and email. Over the first two weeks in October, the firm asked four questions about companies’ plans for the first quarter of 2012: do you plan to add to your staff, do you plan to reduce your staff, keep your staff at the same level, or are you unsure. Then Manpower crunched the numbers and came up with a “net employment outlook.” The Manpower survey is by definition a rough measure, since it doesn’t count the number of jobs employers plan to add or subtract, but simply asks whether they plan to hire or fire.

In Lakeland-Winter Haven, employment has gotten a big boost from Legoland Florida, the 150-acre theme park that opened in mid-October and employs 1,100 people, according to Bob Gernert, head of the Winter Haven chamber of commerce. The city has several other job engines. One is a downtown technology hub housed in hurricane-resistant buildings that contain servers and fiber optic cables and a business accelerator that supports start-up technology ventures. Gernert estimates the hub has created 350 jobs. One more job creator: construction of a new rail freight logistics center planned for Winter Haven. The project is slated to start next year and will hire some 600 construction workers, according to Gernert.

Nearby Lakeland is home to several corporate headquarters that have been in hiring mode, including Publix Supermarkets, which has 2,600 employees, a regional office of car insurer Geico, which employs 1,900, and WellDyne RX, a pharmaceutical company that moved to Lakeland two years ago and plans to hire a total of more than 600 workers.

Des Moines, Iowa comes in third on the list of metro areas with the best hiring outlook, with a net increase of 14 percent. Houston, Texas and Phoenix, Az. also have a net hiring outlook of 14 percent.
Forbes.com: America’s worst cities for finding a job

At the other end of the spectrum, Spokane, Wash., Fresno, Calif. and Dayton, Ohio, all have negative hiring outlooks of -4 percent. In Spokane, for instance, 12 percent of employers say they plan to increase hiring, but 16 percent project they will be cutting staff early next year.

Nationwide, Manpower calculates net hiring growth at 9 percent, up from 7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 and a tiny bit better than a year ago, when the outlook was 8 percent. Melanie Holmes, a vice president at Manpower Group, says, “the growth is not as robust as we’d like to see it.” Adds Holmes, “we’ve had a positive outlook for nine straight quarters, but these numbers are pretty small. They’re not where we need to be to get us out of this unemployment hole we’re in.”

Manpower has been running its quarterly employment outlook survey since 1962. During prosperous times, the nationwide number has been in the double digits, hitting 20 percent in 2000, the last year the national unemployment rate dipped below 4 percent.


For Holmes, another telling number in the Q1 2012 survey is the percentage, of employers, 7 percent, who said they were unsure about hiring plans, up from just 3 percent last quarter. “That’s the most significant increase we’ve seen since 1977, and the highest percentage since 2005,” says Holmes. “There continues to be uncertainty about the marketplace so employers are reluctant to make the investment in a permanent hire.”

I lived in Florida at the tail end of the Jimmy Carter years, and departed for South Carolina at the dawn of Ronald Reagan.


Employment opportunities in Florida absolutely sucked under Carter. I was a credentialed teacher, and had other aspirations of the day which I later pursued.


I ended up teaching 10th and 11th grade English in Miami Dade public schools for way less than $20,000 per year back in 1979.

I had a good time though, and have no personal regrets.

Though, I do personally kick myself sometimes for not staying with teaching simply because I knew it was a worthy thing to do. My teaching persona and presentation was Grade A, as was my perceptiveness and ability to interact with the kids.

J.R., I so admire you and give you great accolades for your perseverance in your tremendous teaching career.

I'm sure there is a great way to say same in Latin, but I never took Latin.

Thanks for the kind words, CALI.
I also began my career in 1979, and my salary was about HALF of 20K!

J.R. wrote:Thanks for the kind words, CALI.
I also began my career in 1979, and my salary was about HALF of 20K!

Mine was $10,400, so I think we were ballpark.

An early Happy New Year everyone.

My youngest daughter has apparently started to get old at the age of 22 as she and her 25 year old boyfriend have opted to stay in and watch movies and the ball drops at his parent's house in Naples FL this New Years Eve.

Nothing wrong with that. His Mom is Italian and a great cook, and his Dad is a super host with bountiful amounts of liquor and wine on hand.

Essentially the same thing my wife and I are doing, as we will firmly embrace the East Coast New Year in about 25 minutes, the Central New Year in one hour and 25 minutes, the Mountain West in two hours and 25 minutes, and our very own California New Year in about 3 1/2 hours.

My youngest is home from college, now with his girlfriend here who attends college in Florida.

They both are in San Francisco this evening to watch the New Years fireworks over The Bay. They will BART home afterwards.

My wife and I will look for them on KRON4 television's live broadcast, starting at 11:30PM Pacific.

I offered to take my wife out for dinner and/or dancing, but she strongly opted to stay in and watch Auburn football from the old "Peach Bowl," and to enter the New Year from the comfort of our living room.

I struggled with the menu with it being New Years Eve and a football game and all.

I did light a fire in the fireplace.

I landed awkwardly on fresh lobster dipped in butter and also served and on rolls, followed by a halftime entrance of Frank's Red Hot oven baked chicken wings.


It's worked so far. I just put the black eyed peas in the slow cooker with some crumbled bacon and a split ham hock as part of tomorrow's dining. Collard, mustard and turnip greens to come in prep, along with the pork and sauerkraut.

Yum.

I'm uncertain about attending The Browns game at a Browns bar tomorrow. It seems like a strange New Years Day to come, sans College Football.....and sans January 1 Rose Parade. I know it sounds goofy, but after having actually attended an 8AM California time Rose Parade I've become accustomed and attached to the damn thing.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all Indian fans. Maybe this will be the year for the Tribe!

Happy 2012.

We were at my wife's family in Maine for Christmas. Originally, we had planned to spend NYE at some friend's in Western Mass, but they came down with some flu, so we drove home instead. Overnighted in upstate NY right around Rochester at a Red Roof Inn. Found a pretty decent wine store to get some wine for the Mrs., and some pints of my favorite pilsner, plus a little "airplane-sized" bottle of Tullemore Dew, which was about the best whiskey one could get w/o buying a full bottle.

Found a local pizzeria still going strong at 830, so ordered a pie and some wings.

Boy was asleep by 10. Wife was asleep by 1030 (though in her defense, she did wake up at 1145 for the ball dropping), so I watched Diner's Drive-ins, and Dives for about 90 minutes.

We shared a Prosecco/Tally toast at midnight, and all were asleep by 12:45.

Came home New Years day. Got some Beef-on-Weck in Buffalo, stopped at the Falls, and headed across Canada.

Worked about 6 hours Monday night, and back to it full-time yesterday.

Darkstar, I'm glad you had a good time and carved a good time. Getting some good spirits and a local pizza and "Rochester Wings" is a great and creative way to have warmed up and have fun at even a Northern New York Red Roof Inn as January was approaching. Well spontaneously done.

I'm envious of a couple of points....being in Maine, for one....and seeing Niagara Falls in the winter for the second. I saw the American Falls completely frozen over in the winter of 1973-1974. It was super cool, especially having seen The Falls before and since.

One of our local supermarkets had live lobster on sale for $8.99 a pound last week. I talk to the butchers often and tout and praise them on their offerings and work. The meat department manger of our local Lucky's cooked two up for me last week as a personal favor. The butter dipped lobster was great, as were the lobster rolls I made from his share.

Candidly, I had to google "Beef on Weck," but now that I did I realize I've had pretty close to the same thing at Wolfie's on Miami Beach many years ago. Sadly it seems as I google now again, Wolfie's is no longer open for business.

Happy New Year!

Again, good job on the spontaneous fun.

(did you try to connect with TFIR en route?.......he might have been open to striking a late December tennis ball on some indoor court of Rochester......)

I suppose this is as good a place as any to post this:

Grady Sizemore Engaged: Brittany Binger Set to Marry Greg Oden of Baseball
By Gabe Zaldivar
(Featured Columnist) on January 4, 2012

Marriage is hard for athletes. They are always off, playing their stupid games. It's a good thing that Grady Sizemore will soon be on the DL soon, because then he can spend all the time with fiancee Brittany Binger.

Yes, the Indians star slugger with a heart of gold and a left knee that has been surgically altered will marry his long-time boo.

Cleveland Indians beat writer Paul Hoynes drops the great news in the form of an exuberant tweet. Okay, perhaps we are assuming too much with the exuberance.

Twitter

Let us first raise a hypothetical glass of champagne to the soon-to-be-married couple. We wish them nothing bu the best and fine health.

Now about that health. I am sure Indians fans will want double wishing on that stuff. Sizemore has the skills to be one of the best hitters in baseball. Sadly, fate and injury keep getting in the way.

That hasn't stopped the Indians from buying in as they just gave the perennial disabled lister $5 million for one year. Here is to hoping that the one year is more along the lines of 2008, when he slugged 33 home runs and batted in 90 runs.

If not, Sizemore certainly knocked it out of the park with Binger. Binger is a former Miss June 2007 Playboy Playmate of the Month.

Since I enjoy a captivated audience, I will provide the eye candy portion of this good news roll out here. And that, my friends, is what they call winning.

Sizemore may be just as banged up as the NBA's Greg Oden, but he is off to a great start this year. He has a fine new contract that gives him one last chance to shine.

If not, he will live a lifetime of wedded bliss with Ms. Binger. And judging by things, life is going to be extremely blissful

TFiSC(nC)

It is I who has envy my friend -- Lobster!! I was in Maine for a week, and had nary a bite, although two helpings of Haddock helped soften the blow, however.

I wasn't able get any time on the Tennis courts with TFIR (although I did play some Wii Tennis with the inlaws!)

Wings and Beer are my "comfort food". I do not eat them with the regularity that I once did, but still enjoy them when I can. We have a "Buffalo Wild Wings" franchise close to us, but it was nice to get something closer to authentic.

Falls were not frozen, but for seeing them for the first time, I was still awe-struck. Satellite imagery of the full Falls complex leads me to believe that I need to see the Canadian side.

All in all, it was a good NY, sans all the time in the car.

Living in Arizona 8 months a year and Rhode Island only 4 months, I sure do miss the seafood. I probably go through 2 dozen littleneck clams every week and steam up crabs and lobsters throughout the summer. When I get to Az in the fall, I have go through withdrawal for a few weeks.

I'm drooling just thinking about seafood.

seagull wrote:I'm drooling just thinking about seafood.

Ditto! I had to stop thinking about seafood. Otherwise, I'd run out of towels!

TDU wrote:I suppose this is as good a place as any to post this:

Grady Sizemore Engaged: Brittany Binger Set to Marry

The Binger-Sizemore engagement.

Sounds like an ad for breast enhancement options.....


ba da bing!