Food-shopping bargains, wild salmon, Costco Egg Whites

At H Mart, the Korean supermarket in Englewood.

Editor's note: Today, I go in search of food-shopping deals, discuss a meal in a bottle and continue to adapt to Costco Wholesale's new Kirkland Signature Egg Whites.

I cut out a few coupons from my H Mart summer savings booklet and tried my luck in Little Ferry, one of the Korean supermarket chain's bigger stores.

In contrast to the large, seedless watermelons I found at the Englewood H Mart, Little Ferry had small watermelons for $3.99 with a coupon, limit of 2.

Liter bottles of 100% Pomegranate Juice were 2 for $4 with a coupon, compared to the regular price of $3.99 each.

Liter bottles of Looza Apricot Juice and Looza Mango Nectar, made with sugar and imported from Belgium, were 2 for $5 (no coupon needed).

ShopRite

At the Englewood ShopRite, my wife found a loose fillet of boneless salted cod for $6.99 a pound, compared to the usual price of $8.99.

But a half-gallon of ShopRite Lactose Free Milk is now $3.49, a dime more than before. It also has a new cap, which uses less plastic.

I saw organic produce for the first time on Thursday at the International Food, Liquor and Wine Warehouse in Lodi. I go for the food, because I haven't seen any  wine, beer or liquor bargains.

On Thursday, at the International Food Warehouse in Lodi, I found organic produce for the first time.

A big stalk of Earthbound Farm Organic Celery was only 99 cents, compared to organic celery hearts I bought at Trader Joe's for $2.29.

A 12-ounce package of Earthbound Farm organic romaine lettuce (3 pieces) also was 99 cents.

Liter cartons of Dimes Peach Nectar and Mango Drink from Turkey, both from concentrate and made with sugar, were 2 for $3.

That works out to about 4.5 cents an ounce.

I saw 2-liter bottles of juice from Pakistan at a low price, but didn't buy any.

I also looked over the store's beer offerings, but had a hard time finding price signs.

When I got home, I made canned-fish salad, dicing some of the organic celery and leaves, and combined them with 2 cans of pink salmon, 2 cans of Moroccan sardines and 1 can of yellowfin tuna, including all of their oil or water.

I dressed them with Dijon mustard, ground cumin and fresh lime juice to taste.

Wild sockeye salmon from Costco Wholesale poached in bottled Mexican Green Salsa with fresh lime juice, and served with leftover organic brown rice and organic diced tomatoes prepared in an electric cooker.

Bring the salsa to a boil, add small pieces of skin-on fillet, cover and cook over a medium-high flame for 5 minutes (pink inside) to 7 or 8 minutes (cooked through). The fish will continue to cook in the covered pan after you turn the fire off.

The fillet comes with the pin bones removed.

Meal in a bottle

After an exhausting day in traffic, the last thing I wanted to do on Friday night was cook dinner.

But my wife had picked up a fillet of wild-caught sockeye salmon at Costco Wholesale for $10.99 a pound.

We also had a bottle of Mexican Green Salsa in
the cupboard, leftover organic brown rice in the refrigerator and for salad, plenty of red-leaf and green-leaf lettuce from the garden.

Dinner was on the table in under 10 minutes.

This is the second time my wife bought wild salmon at the Hackensack Costco on a Friday, and the second time she could find only fish packed the day before.

The fish packed the previous day has a faint, fishy smell, though that isn't evident in the taste.

The fillet she bought on Friday was labeled "Product of the USA," and was $3 a pound cheaper than the wild salmon from Alaska's famed Copper River we have been buying.

Next week, she'll buy wild salmon at Costco on Thursday. 

An omelet made with the new Kirkland Signature Egg Whites, which seems to have replaced Costco Wholesale's old Real Egg Product with thickening agents, spices and color.

I added too much ground tumeric to this Kirkland Signature Egg Whites omelet with sun-dried tomatoes, served with organic quinoa prepared in an electric rice cooker. I moistened the quinoa with a spicy green salsa from a Peruvian restaurant.

Kirkland Signature Egg Whites formed the basis of this fluffy Pesto Frittata, which I started on the stove and finished under a low broiler setting. In addition to about 8 ounces of Egg Whites (half a carton), I used 4 whole organic brown eggs, a couple of ounces of grated Italian cheese and low-fat milk.

Pesto Frittata, wild salmon in green salsa and organic brown rice made a filling breakfast today.




Costco Wholesale's new Kirkland Signature Egg Whites are egg whites and nothing but egg whites.

So they form a thin, almost clear liquid that isn't as thick as the Real Egg Product (99% egg whites) that Costco seems to have stopped selling, and that means home cooks will have to adjust.

My wife doesn't think the new product looks appetizing, and has stopped making scrambled eggs with it.

I've adjusted by adding more whole eggs to frittatas and reduced-fat grated or shredded cheese to simple omelets.