The Hometown Café is open for dine-in and carryout.
WEEKLY MENU
Monday 11/9
Stuffed Peppers, Stewed Tomatoes, Wild Rice Blend
Cauliflower
Soup: Philly Cheesesteak
I stuff the peppers with 90% lean ground beef, brown rice, some Italian sausage and sofrito (a mixture of celery, onions, sweet peppers, garlic and thyme). The stewed tomatoes I use are wonderful right out of the can and they are relatively low in sodium as canned tomatoes go with just 360 mg for a three-ounce portion. The DASH diet daily limit for sodium is 2 grams, or 1,000 mg. With little effort, you can fit a portion of these stewed tomatoes into your daily sodium count! The rice is a blend of white basmati rice mixed with Great Lakes wild rice. The soup features everything you associate with a Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich: onion, peppers, cheese and beef. Consider the soup a treat if you are watching calories, saturated fat and or sodium. The stewed tomatoes, rice and cauliflower are gluten-free; the stuffed peppers and soup are not.
Tuesday 11/10
“Fried” Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Mixed Vegetables
Soup: Red Lentil
This is a new item. Those of you who have been eating my food for a few years might remember the first breaded chicken product I found that was low in fat, saturated fat and sodium. It was a boneless and skinless chicken thigh, an excellent product, and I started serving it to patients in the hospital as “fried chicken,” even though it was baked in our fancy air frying oven. After US Foods discontinued that product, I switched to the chicken nuggets we serve now, but those are made from chicken breast, which tends to dry out in our high-temperature steam table. This new product, made from boneless and skinless chicken thigh, is naturally moist, retains moisture in our steam table, and has 4 grams of fat (1 gram saturated), 80 mg cholesterol and 420 mg sodium per serving. The mashed potatoes are homemade, and I am using the same beef gravy that I make on Saturday for our pot roast! This red lentil soup was inspired by “Joan’s Red Lentil-Lemon Soup” from The Natural Gourmet by Annemarie Colbin, which is one of the best macrobiotic-style healthy cookbooks ever written! My version features cauliflower, carrots, celery and a shot of freshly squeezed lemon juice at the end. I will use Better Than Bouillon chicken and ham bases, as well as just a touch of oil-based roux to thicken the soup. You can buy the Better Than Bouillon Soup bases I use right down at Gene’s grocery store! Look for the “Chef Steve’s Grab Good” label in the aisle! The ham and vegetables are gluten-free. The soup and potatoes are not. Only the mashed potatoes and vegetables are gluten-free; the chicken, gravy, and soup are not.
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Wednesday 11/11
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 11/12
Chipotle Style Burrito Line
Soup: Southwest Steak
Today, we are serving a Chipotle restaurant-style burrito. That means we will be offering lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream and salsa. This meal can be pretty healthy if you choose the right ingredients for your burrito. Watch the cheese and sour cream if you want to reduce fat and calories. Per serving, the beef has 150 calories, 12 grams of fat (5 grams saturated), 65 mg of cholesterol and 290 mg of sodium. The brown rice and pinto beans are both meat-free, oil-free, dairy-free, gluten-free and relatively low in sodium. Both the brown rice and pinto beans are great sources of fiber and non-meat protein and will fit into the plant-based whole foods diet. Remember that if you are trying to stick with the macro-nutrient parameters for a moderate diet like the DASH diet, the daily target for fiber is no less than 30 grams a day! As a word of warning for the 100% vegans out there, I do use ham and chicken bases in both the rice and beans. I am using eye of the round for the beef in the soup. I cook it until it is nice and tender and add tomatoes, black beans, corn and cilantro. It will have a definite Tex-Mex lean featuring a Spanish smoked paprika called Pimentón. The burrito, as a rice bowl without the tortilla, is gluten-free; the soup is not.
Friday 11/13
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!!”
