How 1% can make a big difference at Costco

A quick omelet made with Kirkland Signature Real Egg Product, above, and with Egg Whites, a new product that replaced it at the Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, below.

After a few minutes in a hot pan, the new product looks like this, but it pours out of the container as a thin, clear liquid, below.

100% Egg Whites pour clear and turn white as they cook.

Editor's note: Costco Wholesale has a new egg-white product, and a new mango nectar. Also today, I discuss a problem with Kirkland Signature spice bottles, an easy preparation for shrimp and how to prevent separation in Costco's Natural Peanut Butter.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Costco Wholesale's Kirkland Signature Real Egg Product contained 99% egg whites, plus color, spices, salt, onion powder and other ingredients.

Now, a new product contains nothing but 100%, cholesterol-free egg whites.

I used the new Kirkland Signature Egg Whites to make a simple cheese omelet on Monday morning, but blinked twice when I saw a clear, watery liquid pouring out of the container.

The old product had beta carotene and looked yellow, but the new one cooks up white.

The new product and carton, left.

When I ate the omelet made with 100% egg whites, I didn't miss the spices, salt and onion powder in the old one.

Other ingredients in the Real Egg Product were xanthan gum, guar gum and maltodextrin.

It's hard to compare sodium and protein in the new and old products, because different  serving sizes are listed.

Six 16-ounce cartons of Kirkland Signature Egg Whites were $9.49 at my warehouse store in Hackensack.

2% reward

I got a Costco Wholesale rebate check for $174.75 today -- a 2% reward for being an Executive Member.

The check more than covers the $110 annual fee for my Executive Membership.

That check was in addition to several hundred dollars in rebates I received earlier this year from the American Express card I use at Costco.

The American Express card gives me a 1% rebate at Costco, as well as 1% to 4% back on restaurant, gasoline, travel and other purchases.

The loosely fitting white cover with holes, left, came off and too much black pepper ended up in the ackee and salt fish my wife was preparing on Sunday morning, below.

Kitchen accident

We continue to have problems with the poorly designed or poorly manufactured perforated tops used on Kirkland Signature spice bottles.

The spices are terrific, but once in a while, the tops come off and you end up dumping too much pepper or too much granulated garlic on the food you're preparing.

Sometimes, the perforated top comes off with the screw top. At other times, it's too loose and falls off when you upend the bottle.

Mango drink

Last week, I received a comment that Brazil Gourmet mango nectar was no longer available at the Huntsville, Ala., Costco, and I haven't seen it at my Hackensack store, either.

We've been buying Langers Mango Nectar, which is 20% juice and contains filtered water, mango puree and sugar.

Two 3-liter, BPA-free plastic bottles of Langers Mango Nectar were $8.89 at the Hackensack Costco.

I've been using it to make smoothies with fresh bananas, frozen strawberries and non-fat Greek yogurt, all from Costco.

When bottled green Mexican salsa and fresh lime juice are boiling, remove the cover and place thawed and shelled Black Tiger shrimp from Costco Wholesale into the sauce. Cover and cook for a few minutes or until the shrimp curl up and turn white, below.

We had them over Della-brand Organic Brown Rice made in an electric cooker with Kirkland Signature Organic Diced Tomatoes, both from Costco Wholesale.

Easiest shrimp dish

Bottled Mexican green salsa, fresh limes and Costco's Black Tiger shrimp are all you need for a quick, tasty dinner that is ready in minutes.

Empty the bottle into a pan, squeeze in the juice from a lime, bring to a boil and add the thawed and shelled shrimp, which are already deveined.

Cover and cook until the shrimp curl up and turn white. 

You can eat shrimp and sauce over rice, pasta, quinoa or bulgur wheat.

I used a 16.7-ounce bottle of La Costena-brand salsa verde I found on sale last week for $1.50 at Hackensack Market.

The green salsa also can be used to cook any fish fillet.

The U-15 shrimp are farm raised in Vietnam, and cost $10.50 a pound when you buy the 4-pound package at Costco.

They are previously frozen and contain salt.

To prevent separation of the oil in the ground peanuts, you should refrigerate Kirkland Signature Natural Peanut Butter right after you purchase it. The thick, flavorful Costco product contains Valencia peanuts and salt, but none of the rapeseed, cottonseed and other hydrogenated vegetable oils added to prevent separation in national brands like Skippy, which Costco also sells.

From a communist country to a Costco near you

Costco Wholesale's Kirkland Signature Ground Saigon Cinnamon label is superimposed on a map of Vietnam, a communist country. A run-on sentence with a typo describes the cinnamon trees and the "unmatched" sweet-hot flavor of the cinnamon.

 

I've been using Costco Wholesale's Ground Saigon Cinnamon for years, and love the special flavor it gives to homemade lattes, hot cereal and salt-free roasted almonds.

I also buy Costco's farmed Black Tiger Shrimp from Vietnam, a communist country, and I know that schools of farmed, catfish-like basa fillet land on U.S. shores every year.

I don't really have a problem with Costco selling food from a communist country.

But I wish Costco and other U.S. retailers would sell products from another communist government, the one on the island of Cuba.

The trade embargo imposed on Cuba in the Kennedy administration means any U.S. company that tries to sell island products faces big financial penalties.

And customs officials likely would confiscate and destroy any Cuban products brought home by American tourists returning from the Caribbean's biggest island.

Cuba is known for its wonderful rum, but also produces excellent coffee, and it's the only place I know where you can find 100% mango juice in grocery stores.

Americans buy fresh, wild-caught red snapper from South America, but are denied Cuban pargo, lobster and other seafood.   

At Costco, one can yields several meal ideas

Organic Diced Tomatoes, left, are one of the new Kirkland Signature items at Costco.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Costco Wholesale has been offering cans of organic diced tomatoes from Del Monte and other companies for years, and I've been using them in several fish, pasta, rice and egg dishes.

Now, Costco has introduced its own Kirkland Signature-brand Organic Diced Tomatoes, Organic Stewed Tomatoes, Organic Tomato Paste and Organic Tomato Sauce.

Penne in marinara sauce with added diced tomatoes, left. The pasta made a rib-sticking breakfast when eaten with Korean-style stewed tofu and pollock from H Mart.

 

Comparing the nutrition labels of the Organic Diced Tomatoes from Del Monte and Kirkland Signature, the only difference for a half-cup serving size is calories. 

Del Monte lists 20 calories and the Costco store brand lists 15, none from fat.

Both are made from organic California tomatoes and both are certified organic by Oregon Tilth.

An 8-can pack of Kirkland Signature Organic Diced Tomatoes was $5.99. 

Diced tomatoes are a versatile ingredient in quick, no-recipe, home-cooked meals.

Diced tomatoes with fish

Empty a 14.5-ounce can of diced tomatoes into a large, non-stick pan and add extra-virgin olive oil, fresh lemon or lime juice, powdered garlic and other seasonings; cover and warm over medium heat.

When the mixture starts to boil, uncover and place fresh, wild-caught fillets in the pan, season with Costco's Kirkland Signature Organic No-Salt Seasoning and cover.

My Costco in Hackensack usually has wild-caught haddock from Iceland, as well as wild-caught flounder and cod fillets ($7.99 and $8.99 a pound).

This also would work with frozen, wild-caught salmon or cod fillets from Costco.

Depending on the thickness of the fillets and whether the fish is fresh or frozen, cook for 15 to 30 minutes, place a fillet in a plate and cover with diced tomatoes. 

You can do the same with those large Black Tiger shrimp available at Costco, but they would be ready in 5 minutes or less -- when they curl up and turn white.

I prepare organic brown rice in an electric cooker, and often mix a can of diced tomatoes with the rice to add moisture, texture and color to the finished dish.

A can of drained diced tomatoes adds texture to bottled marinara or other pasta sauce, which I supplement with extra-virgin olive oil, red-pepper flakes, garlic powder and Italian seasonings, and a can of anchovies in oil.

To cut the sodium content of the dish, I drain the anchovies in a colander and rinse them under water before adding them to the sauce.

The anchovies cook away, but give the sauce a robust flavor it wouldn't normally have.

Good in omelets

   

You can also drain a can of diced tomatoes, place them in a plastic container and refrigerate them for use with egg dishes.

I make open-face egg-white omelets with buffalo-milk mozzarella or sliced, reduced-fat cheese, all available at Costco. 

Adding a tablespoon of diced tomatoes is a natural -- sort of a pizza without the fattening crust.

On Tuesday, I bought a 1-pound plastic bottle of Kirkland Signature Shredded Parmigiano Reggiano from Italy, where the cheese was aged for 24 months ($13.79).

This flavorful shredded cheese would be perfect in an open-face omelet, supplemented by grated Pecorino Romano and dice tomatoes.

If you use whole eggs to make a frittata -- such as the Organic Brown Eggs from Costco -- you can mix the grated and shredded Italian cheeses, diced tomatoes, sweet peppers and other ingredients with the eggs.

Pour the egg mixture into a heated non-stick pan with oil and cook over medium heat.

When the bottom is set, put the pan under the broiler for about 5 minutes or until the top is browned.  

Organic eggs with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

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A guilt-free, turkey-free Thanksgiving

Leftover Thanksgiving vegetables and mashed sweet potatoes at breakfast today.

I smiled when I weighed myself today -- 181.6 pounds, exactly what I weighed on Thursday before our big Thanksgiving meal.

I helped roast turkey parts and heat up a fully cooked Niman Ranch ham for the meat-eaters in the family. 

They also had store-bought corn-and-crab chowder and homemade brown rice and peas.

But I was happy with a meatless meal of salad, vegetables (carrots and green beans), and Black Tiger shrimp.

Another side dish was mashed, skin-on sweet potatoes and garlic cloves with extra-virgin olive oil, butter substitute, maple syrup and cinnamon.

I drank sparkling 100% Apple Cider from Spain mixed with lemon-lime seltzer to cut the sweetness, and a glass or two of Bordeaux.

This red wine tasted great with Black Tiger shrimp.

 


Later, with my teenage son, I watched a football game on TV. I also watched a Robert De Niro movie, "Being Flynn."

For dessert, I had Spanish clementines and a ripe Bartlett pear with a couple of slices of reduced-fat cheese.

For breakfast this morning, I fried two organic eggs sunny side up with sun-dried tomatoes and Aleppo red pepper, and slid them over leftover vegetables and sweet potatoes, which I reheated in the microwave.

Delicious, especially the yolks broken over and eaten with the mashed sweet potatoes.

 

Black-pepper pasta wasn't intentional

The white top with holes, left, came off with the screw cap, and I inadvertently dumped nearly one-third of a bottle of Malabar Black Pepper into my pasta sauce.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss a dish born of a kitchen accident, and take a look at the latest Perdue chicken label.

Hurrying to prepare a pasta sauce for dinner on Monday night, I emptied a half bottle of marinara into a non-stick pan and followed it with a can of anchovies and oil, red-pepper flakes and dried Italian herbs.

What about black pepper, I thought, then grabbed a bottle from Costco Wholesale I had in the cabinet, unscrewed the top and shook it over the sauce -- dumping one-third of the bottle into the pan.

The loose-fitting cap with holes came off with the screw top.

I scooped up as much as possible, but the result was a peppery whole-wheat spaghetti unlike anything I have ever tasted before.

I'm planning to take back the bottle of Kirkland Signature Coarse Ground Malabar Black Pepper and ask for a refund.

Black-Pepper Pasta with Black Tiger shrimp.

For breakfast today, I had Black-Pepper Pasta with two organic eggs.

Can Can poultry

The current Perdue label shows a mythical farm house.

Perdue poultry is 40% off during the 10th anniversary Summer Can Can Sale at ShopRite supermarkets, but the low-quality birds are almost always on sale.

The newest label boasts of an all-vegetarian diet and  no animal byproducts, but is silent on the use of antibiotics to keep the chickens from getting sick in the close quarters of huge poultry houses.

Also missing is a statement the poultry is raised humanely.

The package says "no hormones or steroids added," but that's meaningless because federal regulations bar those harmful additives.

And "raised cage free" also is meaningless.

When in ShopRite, look for antibiotic-free Readington Farms or Coleman Organic poultry. 

You'll pay more, but get a tastier bird and one that's better for you.

Garden salad

Red-leaf lettuce and cucumbers with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Now, when I have a Garden Salad, it actually comes from a garden, the one behind my house.

We're also harvesting a few black figs; fresh mint and oregano, and we're waiting for tomatoes.

Going meatless: Hits and misses

Image via Wikipedia

I've started to look for meat substitutes in nearly every food store I visit. Is this a sign we are wavering on our meatless pledge -- now more than six weeks old? Will we be going back to eating meat? Well, we've discussed it, but that's where it remains.


I was happy with some of the items I found at Whole Foods Market in Paramus, but not with Westoy vegetarian stir fry strips ($3.39), which turned out to be seitan. I thought seitan was made of soy, but these strips are made of wheat protein and provide "the same texture and mouth feel that a piece of chicken or beef would have with only half the calories and only 1.5 grams of fat," the box states.

I stir fried the strips with organic red Swiss chard. I didn't especially like the color, texture or taste, but when my wife ate the leftovers, she thought the strips tasted fine, and I won't be returning a second, 8-ounce box for a refund.

On Thursday, I visited New King Fung Supermarket on Kinderkamack Road in River Edge to return a Japanese bowl with an errant brush mark, and took a closer look at its prepared soy items, most of them shrink-wrapped and kept cold.

Another shopper showed me vegetarian chicken and vegetarian duck ($3.99 each), but the ingredients included MSG as well as soy and mushrooms so I passed. I bought sweet-and-spicy soy chunks, fried triangles of tofu, spicy soy discs and fried Japanese tofu ($2.49 or less), plus a vegetable with dark green leaves that resembles bok choy.

For dinner Friday night, we steamed white rice, and I heated up the sweet-and-spicy soy chunks. I blanched the vegetable and sauteed it with Chinese rice wine, soy sauce, mirin and sesame oil. The soy triangles were pan fried with a sauce of chilis and shrimp. A nice meal.

The jumbo Black Tiger Shrimp I bought at Costco were some of the best I have ever had. I marinated them in the juice of a big lemon, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic powder, black pepper, no-salt organic seasoning and salt for an hour or so, then pan fried them in more olive oil until they curled up and turned white. 

I plated them and the sauce was thick with spices -- perfect for sopping up with crusty bread. My 12-year-old son was raving. We ate the shrimp with bow tie pasta in pesto sauce (Costco).

Wandering aimlessly through Whole Foods

Image by Dine.TO via Flickr

It's a pleasure to shop at Whole Foods Market in Paramus on Sundays. Parking spaces are easy to come by and you can wander through the store at your own pace. There are even a few free samples available -- bread, cheese and the like.

I drove the short distance from my home in Hackensack today for the second week in a row, and spent under $10, looking for sale items and ingredients for dinner tonight and tomorrow. Earlier, my wife drove to Englewood, where we once lived, and visited ShopRite and H Mart.

I love the fish department at Whole Foods, which pledges that all of its farmed seafood is drug-, hormone- and preservative-free. Last week, I bought two pounds of mussels, but forgot they were in the fridge, and they spoiled (I was in court all week). Today, I saw beautiful, whole whiting for $4.99 a pound; a shame, because my wife already bought whiting for a Jamaican fish tea at the Korean market.

In produce, I picked up organic red Swiss chard for $1.79 (about nine-tenths of a pound) that I will stir-fry tomorrow with West Soy seasoned wheat protein strips ($3.39 for 8 ounces) I picked up at Whole Foods last week. This pre-cooked vegan item is often referred to as "the meat of the wheat," the package says.

For tonight's dinner of farmed U-15 Black Tiger shrimp (Costco), giant rigatoni with pesto and salad, I bought a wide, ciabatta-like bread for $2.49 called sperlonga. (Photo: Black Tiger shrimp.)

I spoke to three other shoppers while I was at Whole Foods. All were pleasant, and two wished me "a beautiful day." Contrast that with the grimly determined shoppers at Fairway Market, a few miles away in Paramus, who turn up their noses at you and would just as soon run you down with their carts as speak with you.