Eckert's New Country Restaurant!

We have recently added on to our Country Restaurant! This new addition has doubled our seating capacity, and given us the ability to host groups and private events. The construction will soon be complete, and our grand opening and ribbon cutting will be held on November 5th at 9 am at Eckert's Country Restaurant. Everyone is invited to attend this momentous event!

Our new Restaurant seating will have different menu options than the older part of our Restaurant. The older portion is now the Orchard Cafe and Grill, and the new seating area is Grandmas Kitchen.

The Orchard Cafe and Grill:

Seasonal Fares

Casual Dining

A wide variety of options to choose from such as:

Applewurst and Sweet Potato Platter

Big Apple Chop Salad

Turkey Cranberry

& More!

Grandmas Kitchen:

Family Style Dining

Perfect for Large Groups

Meals like Grandma used to make!

Fried Chicken

Pork Sausage

Honey Ham

& More!

*Kids meals will be available in both sides.

Please Join us on November 5th for the ribbon cutting ceremony at 9 am, and eat afterwards during our grand opening. Here is an Eckert's coupon to help us celebrate!

Carving the Perfect Jack O' Lantern

Jack o' lanterns have been a Fall tradition for centuries! Did you know they originated from an Irish myth, and used to be carved out of turnips? For the history of jack o' lanterns you can visit www.history.com. There are many different ways to carve a pumpkin! Here are some tips for carving the perfect jack o' lantern this fall, after you have picked your beautiful Eckert's pumpkin it's time to begin!If you choose to paint your pumpkin, they will last longer, and any size will do!

• For carving, larger pumpkins are better.



• Try to avoid pumpkins with any mold or bruising. (They will go bad faster)



• If your pumpkin is dirty from being in the field, it is fine to wash it with warm soapy water.



• You normally begin carving a pumpkin by cutting off the top to create a lid. It is necessary to cut at a 45 degree angle so that the lid will have a place to rest once replaced. (If you make the cut straight down it will fall through)



• Another way of pumpkin carving is to cut a hole in the bottom. By making your cut at the bottom of the pumpkin it allows you to fix a leaning pumpkin, and also allows a flat surface for the candle to light your jack o' lantern with (If you do it this way, be sure that there is a good amount of ventilation for your candle so that the inside of your pumpkin does not get scorched.)



• Once the hole is made into the pumpkin you can begin to scrape out the insides, be sure to keep the seeds -they make a tasty snack! To scrape out the pumpkin guts it is helpful to use a large spoon or ice cream scooper.



• Once the pumpkin is scraped clean, it is helpful to soak the pumpkin for an hour or two in bleach water (1teaspoon bleach/1 Gallon of water) This will help to make your freshly carved jack o' lantern last longer, and to prolong shriveling, rub the interior of the pumpkin with petroleum jelly.



• Now it is time to get creative! It is always fun to create your own jack o' lantern pattern, just draw on with a marker and begin carving! If you choose to print a pattern off of the Internet, or purchase one from a store it is now time to tape it to your pumpkin. (It is helpful to cut slit in the paper so that it bends to fit the rounded sides of the pumpkin.) Poke holes along the pattern lines so that they are easily seen and are ready to be carved along.



• A serrated knife or tools that are specifically designed for pumpkin carving are used to carve the face of your jack o' lantern.



• When finished carving, it is time to light the candle. Teal lights are the perfect size to light the inside of a pumpkin, and any battery powered light may be used as well. -If you choose to use a candle to do the job, you can sprinkle ground nutmeg or cinnamon on the inside of the pumpkin walls and when heated up with the candle it will create a wonderful Fall aroma!



• Place your jack o' lantern outside and watch it glow!

Pumpkin Seeds with Cinnamon & Salt

4 cups pumpkin seeds

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

vegetable oil cooking spray



Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet and spread the seeds out in an even layer.

Lightly sprinkle with salt and cinnamon. Bake for about 5 minutes, then stir. Season with salt and cinnamon again continue baking stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes or until seeds are toasted.

Deli's Featured Entrees

At Eckert's Deli, we are now serving hot lunches and dinners every day of the week! Our Featured Entrees include everything from fried chicken to linguine with clam sauce. Eckert's own Darin Stine prepares these delicious recipes on a daily basis. Darin has been trained in culinary arts studies, has been involved in the restaurant business for eight years, and continues to practice his love for fantastic food as our chef at Eckert's Deli!

Eckert's is proud to feature fresh foods made in-house by our chefs on a daily basis. The Featured Entrees can be found at http://www.eckerts.com/ and are updated weekly with the new menu items. This week's items include:

Week of October 11th-17th

Monday

Lunch: Beef & Noodles

Dinner: Fried Chicken

Tuesday

Lunch: Pork Tenderloin

Dinner: Baked Turkey Breast

Wednesday

Lunch: Manicotti

Dinner: Baked Chicken

Thursday

Lunch: Mama's Meat Loaf

Dinner: Linguine with Clam Sauce

Friday

Lunch: Captain's Curry Chicken

Dinner: Beef Roast

Saturday

Lunch: Pork Tenderloin

Dinner: Fish - Catch of the Day

Sunday

Lunch: Smothered Chicken

Dinner: 10-Hour Pork Roast

Eckert's Featured Entrees are a perfefct solution to those nights when your entire family is on the go, and is also great for any lunch break!

Eckert's chefs are always looking for new and exciting recipes to try, so please feel free to recommend a lunch or dinner you don't see on our menu and would like to try!

Blueberries on the Brain!

History is made again this year at Eckert's! For the first time ever, Eckert's has planted Blueberries. It will take two full years until the newly planted bushes are able to produce any berries. We currently have three different varieties planted including Duke, Bluejay and Toro. The Duke variety of blueberries is the earliest to ripen (late June/early July)! If you prefer size over sweetness, the larger Duke Blueberry variety is best. Its sour taste makes it the best variety for baking! Our midseason berry is called Bluejay, and ripens the first of July to the Middle of July. The Bluejay berries are a medium to large size and the berry quality is firm. The Toro variety along with all of our other varieties is a Northern High Bush variety. Northern High Bush means that these types of bushes need a high amount of "chill hours" to get their fruit set. Chill hours are an accumulation of hours where temperatures reach between 30 degrees F to 45 degrees F. If these Northern High Bush varieties do not get the required number of chill hours they may not yield fruit. This Northern High Bush variety is perfect for our sometimes unpredictable Belleville weather! It's no secret that we have bitter cold winters in this area, but this type of blueberry bush is perfectly suited to handle these types of condidtions, and the cold weather even helps with the production of berries.

In order to give our blueberry bushes the best growing environment possible, we first had to add sulfur to the soil until the ph balance was 4.5, this is unusual because for most other crops, the soil does not require such a high ph balance. Mulch also needed to be incorporated into the bed where the bushes were planted, and wood chips placed over the top. Blueberry bushes need soil that retains moisture, but also is drained really well. Eckert's had to place irrigation systems into this particular field to ensure that the moisture of the soil would be precise.

We are very excited to begin our journey into blueberries! Blueberries are a great fruit to pick because it is so easy for our customers to do! Blueberry bushes do not have any thorns so you can just dive right in and get to pickin'! No need to kneel since they are at least knee high, just choose the berry that catches your eye, and pinch off at the stem. When picking your berries, take notice of their size. Smaller berries often have more flavor than larger berries because the taste of larger berries is sometimes diluted by the water they store. When picking you should always look for plump, dark berries! The wait for Blueberries is well worth it, and we look forward to picking Blueberries with you!

Suncrisp Apples: Belleville's Best Kept Secret!

We will begin picking Suncrisp apples October 2nd here at Eckert's! This variety is available exclusively at the Belleville farm only. Suncrisp apples are a hard, tart and long-keeping apple with almost an orange color. This apple ripens late in the season, but has a very firm and juicy flesh. This is the best apple for long-term storage! We planted the Suncrisp variety, on the advice of Mitch Lynd, Ohio grower and variety guru. According to Virginia State University, the Suncrisp apple is formerly known as NJ55. (Newly developed apples, which all begin life as a number, are named only after they are tested and ready for commercial sale.) Suncrisp was developed at Rutgers University by Dr. Fred Hough, a now retired fruit breeder. It is the result of cross-breeding Golden Delicious, Cortland, and Cox's Orange Pippin apples.

Suncrisp are not the prettiest apple variety, and are not often sold directly to consumers because of their dull yellow color, and orange skin. Because this delicious apple has such a terrific qualities like firmness, delicious tart flavor, and long storage capabilities, it is used for a variety of items; baking pies and desserts, apple juice, apple butter, and apple sauce. Companies that produce items with apples as an ingredient love to use the Suncrisp variety because of their terrific flavor and excellent storage qualities. You have probably eaten hundreds of Suncrisp apples over your lifetime and didn't even know it!

The weather is getting cooler and it is time for warm home baked pies! Here is a delicious "Apple Pie in a Glass" recipie that is perfect to use with Suncrisp apples.

3 large tart apples, such as Suncrisp

16 shortbread cookies

1/4 cup sugar

Pinch of Cinnamon

1 pint vanilla ice cream

Description:

Peel, core and chop the apples. Crumble the cookies. Put the apples, sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan with 1/4 cup of water. Cook, covered, over medium heat for about 15 minutes. Remove the lid and cook another 10 minutes, until all the liquid is gone.

Using half the cookie crumbs, divide them between 4 glasses. Spoon ice cream over them. Top with warm apple mixture and then with more crumbs.

Makes 4 servings.