The Hometown Café is open for dine-in and carryout.

WEEKLY MENU

MONDAY 5/11

 

Meatloaf/Red Wine Sauce, Gold Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts/Baby Carrots
Soup: Roasted Cauliflower

 

I use 90/10 ground beef for the meatloaf, which is 90% lean meat and 10% fat. Just about everyone uses 80/20 ground beef, which contains–you guessed it–10% more fat. The meatloaf is baked on a screen and the fat that drips through the screen is discarded. It’s a healthier version of the Midwestern favorite. These days I serve the meatloaf with a light red wine and beef sauce thickened with cornstarch instead of a heavy, oil-laden gravy. Don’t worry—the alcohol is cooked off! The potatoes and vegetables are just steamed with Smart Balance, salt and pepper. I have made roasted garlic and cauliflower soup a few times. This time I am leaving the roasted garlic out and just make roasted cauliflower soup. I use 2% milk instead of cream and Better Than Bouillon ham base instead of bacon. 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! Only the vegetables, potatoes and sauce are gluten-free today.

 

TUESDAY 5/12

Roast Turkey & Gravy, Harvey House Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans
Homemade Cranberry Sauce
Soup: Pasta e Fagioli

 

We use a boneless white and dark meat combination turkey roast that has 3 grams of fat (1 gram saturated), 50 mg of cholesterol and 600 grams of sodium per serving. We steam the turkey, so some of that 600 mg of sodium will wind up in the water left in the pan that we then dilute heavily and use to make the gravy. The daily sodium allowance for a moderate diet like the DASH diet is 2,000 mg, so you can still fit this meal into your diet if you are careful with breakfast and supper today. Fred Harvey opened his first Harvey House restaurant in 1876 in Topeka. Besides setting high-quality standards for hotels and restaurants frequented by ordinary people and helping to “civilize” the West, his Harvey House restaurants and hotels represented the very first “chain” business of any kind in the United States. In any Harvey House establishment, you could expect the same high-quality products and service. These sweet potatoes could be found on many Harvey House menus. The sweet potatoes are boiled, peeled and baked with butter and sugar. The original recipe calls for just powdered sugar, but I have enhanced it with brown sugar, honey and molasses. The cranberry sauce is made from whole cranberries with oranges, sugar and agave, a syrup made from the same cactus that tequila is made from. The soup is a white bean and pasta soup called Pasta e Fagioli. It is pronounced more like “pasta fazhol” and means simply pasta and beans. It is usually started with bacon and pork fat, but I use a Better Than Bouillon ham base, which dramatically reduces the fat content. I do, however, use a small amount of oil to make a roux that aids thickening. 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! Everything is gluten-free today except the gravy and the soup.

 

 

 

WEDNESDAY 5/13

Hawaiian Rice Bowl, Kalua Pulled Pork, Brown Rice, Corn & Peas
Sandwich Slaw, ‎King’s Hawaiian Rolls
Soup: Beans & Franks

 

Kalua is a traditional Hawaiian cooking method that utilizes an imu, a type of underground oven. The word kalua, which literally means “to cook in an underground oven,” but may also be used to describe the food cooked in this manner. It’s almost always pulled pork. The pork loin is braised for a long period of time with a marinade made from soy sauce, pineapple juice, brown sugar, ketchup, garlic and ginger. After the meat is seared, I always drain the fat and discard it to reduce the fat content. The sandwich slaw is made with a bit of white balsamic vinegar, agave, salt & pepper, parsley and a little extra virgin olive oil, no mayonnaise. It goes nicely with the pork. Finally, we have King’s Hawaiian dinner rolls! This time I am using Turkey dogs in the soup with pinto and kidney beans, plus some brown sugar. There’s no bacon in this soup; the bacon flavor comes from Better Than Bouillon ham base. 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 brown rice, sandwich slaw and vegetables are the only 100% gluten-free items today. The pulled pork contains a small amount of teriyaki sauce, which is made with soy sauce and is therefore not 100% gluten-free.

 

THURSDAY 5/14

Bratwurst, Choux Croute au Champagne, Red Potatoes
Soup: Lentil Vegetable

 

Choux Croute is a French-German dish from the Alsace region. The sauerkraut is drained and washed and then braised with onions and white wine for a good long while. Most of the sodium in the sauerkraut is washed away and there is only a small amount of olive oil used. We usually use a bratwurst, but US Foods discontinued all but the most unhealthy bratwurst options, so I am going with a Kielbasa this time. It has roughly the same fat and sodium content as the bratwurst we were using. The Kielbasa has 200 calories, 16 grams of fat (5 saturated), 35 mg of cholesterol and 490 mg of sodium. You can make that fit into the parameters of a diet like the DASH diet, but you will have to watch what you eat carefully before and after you have this for lunch. I am making a warmer-weather lentil soup thickened with cornstarch instead of an oil-based roux. If you are watching calories, fat and sodium, this may be a better lunch option for you with the salad bar. The entire meal is gluten-free.

 

FRIDAY 5/15

Steamed Salmon, Cajun Catfish, Fresh Asparagus, Steamed Gold Potatoes
Soup: Steak

 

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.

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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.
DASH Diet Guide

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'S GRAB GOOD

“Chef Steve and his crew make awesome food!!”