The Hometown Café is open for dine-in and carryout.
WEEKLY MENU
Monday 8/3
West Indian BBQ Chicken, Brown Rice & Beans, Corn on the Cob
Soup: Black Bean
The marinade for the chicken is typical of the West Indies and is made from finely chopped “sofrito,” which is a blend of onions, celery and peppers. Sofrito’s origin is Spanish, and it is also used in Creole cuisine, eaten on the southernmost Caribbean Islands all the way up to New Orleans. I use thyme and garlic, accent it with some allspice which grows prodigiously on Jamaica and I add nutmeg for which the southern island of Grenada is called the “nutmeg island.” Like the well-known Jamaican barbeque called “jerk”, I marinate the chicken for two days and then I fire it up on the grill and finish it in the oven with Bull’s Eye BBQ sauce. Throughout the Caribbean, rice and beans and corn on the cob are typically served with grilled meats and chicken. The rice and beans are meat-free (except for Better Than Bouillon bases), oil-free, dairy-free, gluten-free and low in sodium. I use the Better Than Bouillon ham base instead of bacon. Give that a try at home; it will save you loads of saturated fat! You can buy Better Than Bouillon Soup bases right down at Gene’s grocery store! Look for the “Chef Steve’s Grab Good” label in the aisle! The soup has a touch of oil in it to make a small amount of roux but is meat-free (except for Better Than Bouillon soup bases), dairy-free and relatively low in sodium. Instead of bacon, I use a smoked Spanish paprika called Pimentón to give the soup its trademark smoky flavor. Black beans are a great source of non-meat protein and fiber! The DASH diet recommends 30 grams of fiber per day, but most Americans consume less than 15 grams. Get fiber where you can! Everything is gluten-free today except the soup.
Tuesday 8/4
Braised Beef, Stewed Tomatoes, Buttered Fettuccine, Cauliflower
Soup: Chicken Spinach Artichoke
This menu item is modeled after a popular Italian restaurant dish called steak pizzaiola. I am doing it without the cheese. The primary flavors are red wine and the excellent stewed tomatoes I use in many places on our menus. The cube steak I start with has 189 calories, 12 grams of fat (5 saturated), 65 mg of cholesterol and 58 mg of sodium per serving. The cube steaks are seared in a cast iron skillet, deglazed with red wine and then braised in the stewed tomatoes with onions, peppers and celery. The things that stick out in my mind about a good spinach-artichoke dip, besides spinach and artichokes, are cream cheese, white cheese, lemon juice and sour cream. All of that will be in the soup, plus a nice velvety pulled chicken! Along with the jalapeño popper chicken soup, this is one of the favorites with staff and the public! The braised beef, stewed tomatoes and the cauliflower are gluten-free. The pasta and soup are not.
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Wednesday 8/5
Beef & Broccoli, Brown Rice, Egg Rolls
Side: California Roll
Soup: Egg Drop
In Jamaica, as the Executive Chef at the Half Moon in Montego Bay, I learned to make the Jamaican BBQ called “jerk.” Jamaicans use a light soy sauce in some versions of jerk and I took it one step further and fused jerk with teriyaki, making something I call “sesame jerk.” I use this as the base for the beef and broccoli. The flat iron steak I use has about 5 grams of fat (2 saturated) and 50 grams of cholesterol. The sauce and marinade will add some sodium. If you figure on 300 mg of sodium on the high side, that will cover it. Brown rice is a good source of non-meat protein and packs a powerful fiber punch as well! As a reminder, the DASH diet suggests keeping sodium under 2000 mg a day and getting at least 30 grams of fiber a day. Yale New Haven Health says that the average American gets only between 10 and 15 grams of fiber a day! We have two egg rolls. The smaller one is pork and contains some textured vegetable protein. The larger egg roll is all vegetable with no meat whatsoever. Chinese restaurants all deep-fry their egg rolls in oil, making the final fat count something you probably don’t want to know about. We bake them here, so our fancy air-frying oven allows us to keep the fat count way down! Even so, it’s safe to consider egg rolls as a treat with regard to sodium. The California roll is a healthy food option. The surimi, or imitation crab, has a fair amount of sodium, but I only use about half a portion on an entire roll. One portion of the California roll will give you about 150 mg of sodium. If you can not tolerate the small amount of gluten in soy sauce, the soup, brown rice and California roll are the only 100 percent gluten-free items today.
Thursday 8/6
Philadelphia French Dip, Tater Tots
Soup: Hamburger
The Philadelphia French dip is served with grilled peppers and onions. The beef is a very tender pot roast and the dip is a rich beef broth. The pot roast has 12 grams of fat (5 grams saturated), 65 mg of cholesterol and 290 mg of sodium per serving. The sweet potato fries are baked, not deep-fat fried, and have 140 calories, four grams of fat (zero grams saturated), zero mg of cholesterol, and 130 mg of sodium while delivering three grams of dietary fiber! Remember that the DASH diet suggests getting at least 30 grams of fiber a day. Most Americans get only between 10 and 15 grams of fiber a day! I am making the hamburger soup with just a small amount of oil-based roux, so it will be lower in calories than the heavier version I often make in the dead of Winter. Look for stewed tomatoes, cabbage and maybe some elbow macaroni. The Tater Tots are gluten-free, but the bread on the sandwich is obviously not and neither is the soup.
Friday 8/7
Steamed Salmon or Baked Cod, Fresh Asparagus, Steamed Gold Potatoes
Soup: Steak Soup
The salmon is simply steamed with a little Smart Balance, salt and pepper. The cod is baked, not fried and is VERY low in sodium coming in at under 20 mg per serving! The potatoes and asparagus are also steamed, making this a super healthy meal option no matter what fish you choose. The steak soup is for those who don’t eat fish. It’s actually a stew and is a meal in itself! If you are watching fat and sodium, you will have to make room for the soup in your diet, though. The soup and the cod are not gluten-free.
Open for dine-in or carryout weekdays from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM. Due to supply shortages for some products, menus listed may change.
LUNCH PRICES
Full hot lunch (includes one cold side) – $7.99
Just entree – $3.99
Just vegetable or starch – $2.50
Pre-packaged side salad – $2.50
Full Salad Bar (unlimited trips, includes soup and roll) – $11.99
Children’s Salad Bar (8 and under, unlimited trips, includes soup and roll) – $3.99
Children’s Full Meal (8 and under) – $3.99
Senior Salad Bar (65+, unlimited trips, includes soup and roll) – $5.99
Senior Full Meal (65+) – $5.99
Salad only (unlimited trips) – $9.99
Soup only (unlimited trips) – $3.00
To-Go/One Trip Salad Bar – $7.99
Other sides priced specifically.
Be Relevant: About Chef Steve Smith
Chef Steve’s passion for delicious food is paired with a love for creating healthy options. Chef Steve was trained at the Culinary Institute of America and has opened 13 restaurants around the world. Most recently he was the executive chef at Coconut Grove in Nevis, West Indies.
Following a decision to make more healthy food choices in his own diet, Chef Steve became a registered and licensed dietitian. SCMH and Chef Steve have partnered to add nutrition education and support to patients and their families as a new service provided to those staying at the hospital.
Offering high-quality food in a healthcare setting is always a formidable challenge, one few healthcare facilities can tackle. The quality and service goals of a chef and food service professional do not always align with the nutrition concerns of a healthcare facility. Smith County Memorial Hospital has devised a unique solution to this problem in the person of a Chef-Registered Dietitian. By combining the responsibilities for creating food and delivering nutrition services we are able to maintain high quality standards of both food and service while filling the nutrition needs of patients and the community. The result is a food service department that is highly relevant to the medical team, the staff of the facility, patients in the hospital, and the community at large.
The Hometown Café is situated at the front entrance of the Smith County Memorial Hospital, located in North Central Kansas up near the Nebraska border. We are open to the public Monday through Friday from 11:30 am to 3:00 pm and serve approximately 100 staff members, 30 Meals on Wheels participants, 30 members of the public, and 10-20 patients and guests in the hospital daily. Our meals are based on the macronutrient parameters of the DASH diet, and we tailor food and nutrition to meet the needs of patients on an individual basis. As a Chef-RD, Chef Steve goes into patient rooms every day armed with 30+ years’ experience providing tableside service to patrons in high-end hotels and stand-alone restaurants, intimate knowledge of what is in the refrigerators in the Hometown Café kitchen and the skill to know what to do with it, and a dedication to the highest level of service called the Spirit of Hospitality.
Chef Steve's Grab Good
Chef Steve’s community health partnership with Gene’s Heartland Foods makes finding exciting, healthier ingredients a breeze. Look for Chef Steve’s Grab Good labels on the ingredients he selects at Gene’s. Scan the QR code for instant access to Recipes, Pro Tips from a Registered Dietitian, and How-To Cooking Videos. It’s never been easier to cook healthy and tasty meals.
With Chef Steve’s Grab Good, making healthy lifestyle changes is not just easy, it’s a breeze!
“Chef Steve and his crew make awesome food!!”
