11/10/2025
🤤 It's Hometown Bierocks week at Hometown Café! Here's Chef Steve's complete write-up for this week's menu:
Monday 11/10: Green Chili Chicken, Buttered Fettuccine, Broccoli. Soup: Indian Tomato. Green chili sauce is something I created in 1980 to go over a burrito and get covered in cheese and then toasted. I have augmented that version of the sauce to be far healthier by omitting much of the oil, the bacon and some of the sausage and replacing it with Better Than Bouillon ham base to retain the bacon flavor while removing the associated 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! This is a white sauce seasoned with cumin, not chili powder. The sauce contains green chilies and some tomatoes, which are drained to prevent the juice from discoloring the sauce. The grilled chicken has 160 Calories, 3.5 grams of fat (1 gram saturated), 85 mg of cholesterol and 530 mg of sodium per serving. The sauce will easily fit into a moderate diet like the DASH diet. The Indian tomato soup is made using the wonderful lower-sodium stewed tomatoes I use in many places. The soup is seasoned with garam masala, turmeric, garlic and ginger and accented with fresh cilantro and cream. Naturally, I use 2% milk instead of cream to reduce the fat. Nothing is gluten-free today except the vegetables.
Tuesday 11/11: Chicken Baked Steak, Onion Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Fried Okra Home-style Green Beans. Soup: Corn Chowder. The steak has 260 calories with 5 grams of fat (2 grams saturated), 40 mg of cholesterol and 830 mg of sodium. The sodium is pretty high. As a reminder, if you are trying to stick with nutrient parameters associated with a diet like the DASH diet, the sodium limit is 2,000 mg, and that is for the entire day, so you can easily fit this meal into the DASH diet by limiting your sodium intake at breakfast and supper. It requires some planning, but it can be easily achieved! In my opinion, the steak is seasoned with just a little bit too much black pepper. I debated whether to mention this because under the onion gravy it will be hard to detect. I actually like it, but if you are extremely sensitive to pepper and get a piece of the breaded meat without any gravy, it may bother you. The okra is baked, not fried, and a portion has 90 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 mg of cholesterol and 320 mg of sodium. Both the gravy and home-style green beans are meat-free (except for the chicken and ham bases), oil-free and low in sodium. Without the steak, this meal will fit into almost any diet on the healthy diet spectrum. In the corn chowder, 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! There's really no way to avoid using an oil-based roux to thicken the soup, so it will have a little oil with the associated bump in calories. The potatoes and beans are gluten-free.
Wednesday 11/12: Teriyaki Chicken Rice Bowl, Brown Rice, Baby Bok Choy. Soup: Chicken & Corn. If you were ever given a sample of teriyaki chicken in a mall food court, then you have tasted this teriyaki chicken. I love this stuff; it's tender but not shredded and is very well-marinated. This is now officially one of the favorite meals we serve in the Hometown Café! One portion of this chicken has 3.5 grams of fat (1.5 grams saturated), 50 mg of cholesterol and 290 mg of sodium. Brown rice is a great non-meat source of protein with a huge fiber punch! Remember, if you are eating the DASH diet, you shoot for 30 grams of fiber daily. Brown rice can give you a great head start on that number! We're going to try baby bok choy once again. The last two times I ordered bok choy, it arrived the week after it was on the menu. Fingers crossed! The rice, vegetables and soup are gluten-free. The box for the teriyaki chicken has a gluten-free statement, but I see soy sauce listed in the ingredients several times, which is derived from wheat.
Thursday 11/13: Hometown Bierocks, Side Salad. Soup: Jalapeño Popper
Bierocks are a popular item in Nebraska and Kansas, almost exclusively. It's a yeast-leavened sweet bread pocket filled with a savory mixture of ground beef, cabbage and onions, seasoned with garlic, vinegar and a hint of sugar. The portion size is quite substantial...these are big boys! Each portion contains approximately 500 calories, 10 grams of fat (3 grams of which are saturated), 40 mg of cholesterol and 700 mg of sodium. That compares with a bierock from Runza with 490 calories, 16 grams of fat (7 grams saturated), 40 mg cholesterol and 1,280 mg of sodium. This is obviously a treat item, but you can easily make it fit into the macro-nutrient parameters of a moderate diet, such as the DASH diet. We are serving it with a side salad, and you are welcome to use the smaller plastic container and visit the salad bar to build a salad to your liking. This will be the fourth time bierocks have been served here and each time we have increased the amount we make and sold out. The last time we made 240 of these bad boys and this time I decided to just make the maximum our little kitchen will produce. We will be making 315 bierocks and that's all we can do! I am placing a limit of 5 on orders, so everybody has a chance to get one. In the soup, I will use what Jalapeño Poppers are known for; Jalapeños and cream cheese. I will blanch the Jalapeños and toss the water to reduce the spiciness in the peppers. The soup will definitely feature the flavor of Jalapeño, but not the full extent of their fire! It's a cream-based soup and I will use 2% milk instead of cream and Better Than Bouillon ham base instead of bacon. There's no way to avoid using an oil-based roux to thicken the soup, so it will contain a small amount of oil, resulting in an associated increase in calories. 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! Nothing is gluten-free today.
Friday 11/14: Steamed Salmon, Cajun Catfish, Fresh Asparagus, Steamed Gold Potatoes. Soup: Steak. If it's Friday in Smith Center, it is fish day at the Hometown Café! The salmon is simply steamed with a little Smart Balance, salt and pepper. The catfish has just a bit of Cajun seasoning on it and 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 the non-fish eaters. 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 catfish are not gluten-free.
