A suprise meal

 Everyone knows about Eckert's farm and store and restaurant, right?  If not, here is a quick summary of what you have been missing: Long ago at a galaxy far and away, my grandparent's used to take my brothers and I, to Eckert's to go apple picking in the fall.  They would drive out and we would do the apple picking and then we would enter the country store, which I recall at the time, being nothing more than a large barn.  We would go in, get a wooden basket, go out and get apples, and then bring them back where they would weigh them and you would pay pennies for each pound of picked apples.  This was great.  Now, within the past few years, or year, they changed everything.   

This is what the Country store looked like a bit ago, with the restaurant to the left of it.  Then they did this:


You can tell that this farm is doing well when they can tear down their old store and make a huge one.  This store is very much on the inside, as high-tech as a Whole Foods or Schnucks.  As for the restaurant, it used to be tiny, country-style decorated and could sit maybe 50 people.  Now, the place is huge and can easily seat a few hundred.

Now, while the family is still running the farm and businesses, these 6th and 7th generation Eckert's have created a memorable and delicious menu for their restaurant to boast and surpass their apple and other produce picking.

My favorite item of all, is chicken and dumplings.  What I love about the chicken and dumplings at the Eckert's restaurant is: first of all, it is bottomless and second of all, it tastes just like my grandma used to make.  Well, first off, they call it "bottomless" on the menu and what that means is that if you have an awesome server, like we did, he will notice when you are remotely close to the bottom of the large bowl of chicken and dumplings and then he will come out with another large bowl and take the old one.  That's right, a wonderful server will come and replenish your ambrosia, before you can flinch, all for $10.  What made our time there even better, is that when I took what was left to go home, our cool server not only refilled my bowl and placed it into a to-go container, but then he filled up a second container for me.  Awesome.

Now, what about my grandma?  Well, she is of German ancestry.  Her parents came from Germany and started a horse farm near Sullivan, Missouri.  As time went on and she became older, her parents sold the farm for a flat in St. Louis.  Then, she went to work at a shoe company, on Washington Avenue.  Every day, her mother and grandmother (whom lived with them), would make their dinner, which I lust for because it was awesome German food.  Now, my grandmother made two kinds of dumplings:  One was a potato dumpling and then other was a spaetzle dumpling.  What I find most often called "dumplings" when paired with chicken, is the spaetzle ones, which are made with flour, water and some egg.  These are what proper dumpling became to be and as my brothers and I grew older, the spaetzle dumplings paired with chicken

So, the chicken and dumplings I ordered at the restaurant, tasted just like the ones my grandma used to make, which means, the original recipe they make to sell, must be similar in cultural or ethnic region.  Anyways; the famous fried chicken, which is also served and sold as an all-you-can-eat option, is also incredible and juicy and moist with a super crispy coating.

So, my thoughts?  Service, atmosphere and food, all get a 4 out of 5 stars for me.

Go there and give it a shot.

Sugar free and low GL apple pie

Ever since my father-in-law found out that he had diabetics, I found it a little bit hard on him.  Meaning: as a chef, I enjoy it best when other people enjoy my food and meeting people who can't eat this or that because they physically cannot take it then it makes me sad and inspires me to do something about it.  I met a man who was type 1 and he was telling me how he loves to eat things that are really bad for him.  Like he loves to eat cookies but they could potentially kill him.  So what do you do?  Experiment.

 Have you tried to eat one of those sugar-free cookies that you can buy at the store?  The sugar-free chocolate chip cookies taste like someone sprayed a pieces of cardboard with a chocolate scent.  It tastes nothing like a cookie should and that is a problem.  In regards to what I made last night, pie, I know people who always wanted an apple pie, but can't have it because of the sugar.  We are not just talking the added sugar and brown sugar but also the natural sugars in the flours and such. What I did, was make a pie crust, from scratch and then make filling from scratch, both with no sugar and low GL's.

Things like all-purpose flour and other grains have a high carb content and also have a high glycemic load, so it takes longer for your body to break down the sugars.  So, replacing your all-purpose flour which has a GL of 66 per cup with something like whole wheat flour which has a GL of 44 per cup and barley flour which has about 28 GL per cup, definitely reduces the overall GL's. So about 2 cups of flour go into the dough and instead of having 132 GL's in the total crust, I had 71 GL's, which is a considerable difference.  I also replaced all sugar with truvia and added extra cinnamon, which was enough to completely take out those added calories and GL's.  So, that cup of sugar was replaced with Truvia.  So that was 774 calories, about, and about 139 calories that was flat out removed.  Everything else was the same except I did add one teaspoon of molasses,  which added about 20 calories and 3 GL's. 

 How did it taste?  Well, if you love apple pie because of the super sweet sugary taste, then you would not have liked it. But if you like apple pie because of the apples, flaky crust and spices, then you would have liked this.  I made a perfect crust, but because the whole wheat flour became more crumbly than normal, my wife called it an apple crumb pie, which seemed to fit.