Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Classic Cheesecake for Thanksgiving - Foodnetwork.com recipe


It's Thanksgiving and we have many things to be grateful for. 

Last week, we were voted the 4th top food blog in the Baltimore Sun's Mobbies competition. Thank you to everyone who voted for us! 

This week we're celebrating the holiday with family and friends. Our family Thanksgiving tradition is to create a large homemade dessert table filled with a crazy amount of different types of sweets. 

So we decided to contribute a homemade dessert. We found a recipe for Classic Cheesecake
(our favorite dessert!) on FoodNetwork.com -  http://bit.ly/FNCheeseCake
Classic Cheesecake - Photo courtesy of FoodNetwork.com 













Cutting butter in small pieces to melt in a pan or microwave 


Make the grahams crackers crumbs  


Beating the mixture of eggs, vanilla, sugar, cream cheese,
lemon zest, orange zest, and sour cream. 


 Mix the remaining butter with graham cracker crumbs, sugar and a pinch of salt until it's well mixed and crumbly. Then press the crumb mixture into the bottom and sides of the springform pan.  Bake and cool. 
Crack and beat six eggs

Pour the cheesecake batter into the pan. Then wrap the bottom and sides in tin foil


Pour hot water around the cheesecake. Careful when you put the roasting pan in or out of the oven - the water surrounding the cheesecake pan makes it very heavy















Charles putting the sour cream topping on the cheesecake to bake another 5 minutes

The final product!  The house smelled fantastic - hints of sweet vanilla and  cream cheese filled the air. 

Viola! Here is the outcome of all that work, a perfect classic cheesecake with sour cream and fresh berry toppings.

Check out this Classic Cheesecake from FoodNetwork.com here or find other Thanksgiving FoodNetwork.com recipes here.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

- Thomas

hocofood@@@

Monday, November 11, 2013

Gadsby's Bar American - Columbia, Maryland

Gadsby's Chef Robert Gadsby featured in southernliving.com (at Bedford, his former Huston, Texas restaurant) 
Open kitchen 
This weekend, HowChow wrote about his visit to the new Gadsby's Bar American (located in the former Greystone Grill), so my family thought we'd give it a try too. 

We were literally the only people in the restaurant for a late Sunday lunch.  Since it was their first weekend lunch service and the word is still getting out about the new restaurant, we know this will be the last time we don't need a reservation. The restaurant is soon going to be stuffed with hungry customers.

The decor is still all Greystone Grill (including the sign outside), but it was always a cool, modern restaurant. Check out the open kitchen and large stone water fountain. 

What's changed?  The lunch menu is all Gadsby's  - soon to be followed by the dinner menu after the holidays. 



Although there were plenty of places to sit - 2 large dinning rooms - we choose the bar area to watch the Raven's game on a big flat screen TV. 











We each decided to try a different sandwich on the menu, which all came with a side of Idaho fries.

Thomas ordered the Herbed Chicken - grilled chicken, roasted peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, pepper Jack mayo on a sesame seed bun. At Thomas's request the server put the avocado on the side. He didn't think he would like the roasted peppers but they added a sweet touch to the grilled chicken. The lettuce was cold romaine - just the way he likes it crisp and plentiful.

Herbed Chicken
 













I ordered the Smoked Turkey - grilled smoked turkey breast, honey mustard, lettuce and tomatoes. The honey mustard sauce was the bomb - the sweet and savory sauce complimented the smokey flavors in turkey. I only wish the honey mustard sauce was a little thicker.
Smoked Turkey
My dad ordered the Pit Beef - roast beef, horse radish, onions, toasted bun and Idaho fries. He doesn't normally order this type of sandwich, but he was glad he did. He said "the tender and well seasoned meat combined with the horse radish dressing was interesting and delicious."

Pit Beef

Texas Road Side Burger 

























My mom couldn't decide between the "V" Burger  (eggplant, mushrooms, dirty rice, kale, tomatoes, and BBQ sauce)  or the Texas Road Side Burger (black angus beef, onion marmalade, honey glazed bacon, lettuce and tomatoes). She choose the latter and wasn't disappointed. She said it is now one of her top 10 favorite burgers. The honey glazed bacon was the deal breaker.

After we finished our meal, we met Chef Robert Gadsby, the former kick-boxer turned world-class & celebrity chef and Food Network's American Iron Chef competitor, who is a very cool dude in his own right. This British-born chef, has traveled the globe and studied cooking under some of the world's top chefs.

We had a really nice conversation about food with him. He told us about an experience he had with singer Stevie Wonder when the celebrity interviewed him to cook for a big party he was hosting after an awards show. During the interview taste tasting,  Stevie was able to correctly identify all the  ingredients in the food the chef prepared - and express how the tastes complimented each other.

He told us the encounter changed the way he cooked. The chef focused his cooking "as if people were eating food with their sense of taste first." This meant adding "depth of flavor" but only subtle hints that would not overpower the main ingredient's natural flavors.

Right after he told us the Stevie Wonder story, Chef Gadsby invited us to come back for a taste testing of some of his new creations.  What a lunch!!! We can't wait to go back. Stay tuned for another Gadsby's Bar American post soon.

Gadsby's Bar American - 8850 Columbia 100 Pkwy, Columbia, MD 21045, 410-715-4739.

 - Charles

 Gadsby's Bar American on Urbanspoon


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

This is BIG, really BIG!


By far, this has been the most exciting week since we started our blog over two years ago.


On October 31, Howard Magazine printed a four-page story about our 2 Dudes blog. Click here for the story. It includes pictures of us from a photo shoot at Lee Lynn's Restaurant (one of our favorites) and from our time as judges at the Howard County Iron Chef Competition.  Plus, the Howard Magazine reporter Cheryl Clemens was extremely nice and patient with us when she conducted our first big interview at our house.  


To top things off, our story appears in the magazine's Best of Dining 2013 publication which is one of their most popular and well read editions.

When it seemed like the week could not get any better, it did.


2 Dudes blog was nominated for a Mobbie (Maryland's Outstanding Blogs Award) in the Best Food Blog category.

  Guess who nominated us? None other than the veteran HoCo food blogger HowChow.  That's right, HowChow nominated us for a Mobbie award.  Mr. HowChow has been our long time supporter and "Blog"father.  He nominated us even though his own food blog is in the same category as ours.

 This just blew us away.  He definitely gets our vote for  the "Coolest Dude" award  - and we think he'll get (and deserves) a Mobbie award too.

Then our teacher Mrs. Doff, who follows our blog, wrote on our Facebook page that she voted for us.  And my school newspaper teacher Mr. VW, who has his own Rus VanWestervelt blog nominated for a Mobbie, voted for us. 

This has been a really crazy good week.  

We are very grateful for all the support we have gotten from our community, teachers, mentors,  family and readers. 

Voting for the Mobbies started this week and will continue until November 14.  Please consider voting for us, HowChow and our blogger friends such as Village Green/Town Squared, and  The Baltimore Diner
Click here to vote.

Check out a list of HoCo blogs here 


- Charles