Enjoying homemade pesto, pan-fried fish, pasta with sardines and more

Homemade pesto -- basil from my garden, garlic, grated cheese, pine nuts, salt and extra-virgin olive oil -- is a savory accent on a wedge of sweet-potato frittata.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Fragrant basil leaves growing abundantly in my garden are just a distance memory, but I still have one decent portion of homemade pesto in the freezer.

Although pesto is most commonly used as a dressing for pasta, it's versatile enough to spread on a sandwich or to accent a fish fillet just off the grill.

I also use it in omelets and on frittatas. 

Until Costco Wholesale unveiled Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto in 2013, I always made my own pesto in large batches using a blender recipe that could be frozen before the addition of grated cheese.

You'll find the recipe here: 

How to enjoy pesto without pasta

Now that my plants stand withered from the summer heat, I'll return to enjoying Costco's refrigerated pesto, which uses basil leaves from Italy.

Season one carton or 16 ounces of liquid egg whites mixed with grated cheese before adding the mixture to a 10-inch preheated pan with olive oil. As the crust sets, you can add sweet potato slices, boiled separately until you can pierce them with a fork. Then, move the non-stick pan into the broiler until the crust browns (about 15 minutes at a low broiler setting).

Pesto, which requires no heating, can be added to a frittata after it is removed from the oven. I also added crushed Aleppo pepper.

I used homemade pesto and organic pignoli nuts to dress an 8.8-ounce package of Delverde-brand Tagliatelle Nests with Spinach from Italy. These mouth-filling noodles take only about 5 minutes to reach al-dente perfection. I use unsalted water because there is plenty of sodium in homemade or Costco pesto.

A 10-inch egg-white omelet can be stuffed with Costco's smoked wild salmon, pesto and Mexican-style salsa, all sold under the Kirkland Signature house label. I made this omelet with my own pesto.

I had my omelet for breakfast with a baked sweet potato and grilled Chinese eggplant.

I thought I had found a good buy on wild-caught Gulf Shrimp at H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, above and below, but when I turned over the bag, the ingredients included salt and sodium bisulfite, a preservative. I passed.

An unusual item at the Little Ferry H Mart is jackfruit, sold in large pieces for around $5 to $6. If you buy one, make sure you refrigerate it when you get home.

I rely on the Korean supermarket for fresh whole fish at low prices, such as this porgy my wife seasoned and pan fried in olive oil ($2.99 a pound). Three porgies came in under $10. I also picked up baby mustard greens, which were on sale for 78 cents a pound.

Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti from ShopRite in Paramus dressed in Victoria Marinara, Moroccan sardines and fresh cherry tomatoes. I added a little extra-virgin olive oil and a few ounces of red wine to the sauce, plus dried Italian herbs and red-pepper flakes.

A heart-healthy dinner for four with leftovers: A 1-pound box of whole-wheat pasta, a 40-ounce jar of marinara and three or four cans of sardines, mashed with a fork before you add them to the sauce. I left a few ounces of sauce in the bottle and used them to poach two organic eggs for breakfast the next day.

Leftover whole-wheat pasta is a great bread substitute at breakfast.

Dozens of free samples, including the full-fat cheeses I rarely buy, are available at Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St. in Englewood, above and below.

I had a hard time resisting marinated cherry size fresh mozzarella, left, and sampled three with a toothpick.

On Friday, I hit the jackpot with one of Jerry's restaurant-quality take-out dinners made with a soft-shell crab. The complete dinner included string beans, pasta, a stuffed mushroom and a cucumber salad, marked down to $5.99 after 4 p.m.

Other Meals To Go were built around a grouper fillet, chicken picata or sausage. 

At ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east at Forest Avenue in Paramus, the store-brand of Greek Non-fat Yogurt with Fruit was on sale this week (75 cents each), and seemed a better buy than other brands, including Oikos, Chobani and Fage. At home, I opened one of the ShopRite cups, below, but found it wasn't full. The cup holds 8 ounces, but contains only 5.3 ounces of thick yogurt and fruit, the net weight listed on the side.

Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice carries a badge from the Non-GMO Project, telling consumers the oranges weren't grown using genetically modified seed. 

At the Costco Wholesale Business Center, 80 South River St. in Hackensack, a 2-pound bag of triple-washed kale was $3.89 on Thursday. A week earlier, I saw the same bag of kale being sold at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro for $5.39 -- a dramatic example of how prices can vary at the two warehouses.

I never get tired of a classic pasta sauce without a hint of red

Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco Wholesale dressing Garofalo Whole Wheat Pappardelle from Jerry's Gourmet in Englewood. I served the pasta on Wednesday night with stove top-grilled Chinese eggplant that was on sale for 49 cents a pound at H Mart, also in Englewood.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss my 40-year love affair with a classic pasta sauce, the best buy in pomegranates and side dishes from H Mart. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I first tasted pesto, the pasta sauce packed with fragrant fresh basil leaves, in the early 1970s at a seaside Italian restaurant on the French Riviera.

By the late 1980s, I was buying a case of fresh basil leaves every summer, making two-cup, freezable portions from a blender recipe I found in a Marcella Hazan cookbook and enjoying pesto through the winter.

I never fell out of love with pesto, but found the versions served in restaurants often lacked enough basil to deliver the magical taste I remember from that restaurant in Nice, not far from Genoa, Italy, where it originated. 

Not only does pesto give you a break from red pasta sauces, the dressing gets its richness from grated cow's and sheep's milk cheeses, extra-virgin olive oil and pine nuts -- not the artery clogging cream and butter you'd find in Alfredo Sauce. 

Besto pesto from Costco

In recent years, I've relied on Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco Wholesale ($7.99 for a 22-ounce jar) to dress pasta, spread on sandwich bread, and add to soup, frittatas and omelets.

On Wednesday, I took out the jar of Costco pesto I had in the refrigerator, boiled water, added a pound of whole-wheat pappardelle and cooked it for 10 minutes.

I returned the drained pasta to the same pot, with the fire off; added about two-thirds of the pesto, mixed them well and served the wide, mouth-filling noodles with grilled eggplant and a salad for a delicious dinner.

I put the remaining pesto in the freezer.

The pesto's use-by date isn't written in stone, as I've found with some other products from Costco, such as Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix.

Two of the large pomegranates my wife bought at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, above, yielded 4 to 5 cups of seeds, below. Six large pomegranates were $14.99.

Pomegranate season

You can find pomegranates at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, H Mart in Little Ferry and ShopRite in Paramus, among other stores.

But their size, weight and price differ, making them difficult to compare in terms of which one is the best buy.

I've sprinkled pomegranate seeds over hot cereal and salad, and eaten them with a spoon. I'm wondering whether I can cook with them.

For example, the crunchy, sweet-and-sour seeds might taste great as a garnish for steamed organic brown rice or quinoa.

But can I put them in an electric cooker with the other ingredients or should I add them just before I serve the rice or quinoa? Stay tuned.

I found a Persian recipe for Jeweled Rice with pomegranate seeds sprinkled over the dish. Here is a link:

Persian Jeweled Rice (with Nuts and Dried Fruit) 

My wife simply cuts the pomegranate in half and removes the seeds with her fingers over the container we use to store them in the refrigerator.

This morning, a display of pomegranates at the ShopRite in Paramus was missing a price sign. The store circular said they are on sale for 99 cents each through Saturday. 

A ShopRite pomegranate weighed less than 1 pound.

A Costco pomegranate, which cost about $2.50, weighed 1.4 pounds, above. H Mart in Little Ferry has large pomegranates on sale for $1.99 each through Friday. The ShopRite pomegranate looks like the best buy.

Leftover Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain 10 Grain Hot Cereal made a great breakfast today when reheated and served with pomegranate seeds, non-fat Greek yogurt and Organic Blue Agave nectar.

Baby mustard greens were on sale for 99 cents a pound this week at H Mart in Little Ferry, and I bought some to serve with fresh Icelandic haddock from Costco Wholesale ($8.99 a pound), and leftover organic quinoa made with organic diced tomatoes and whole garlic cloves in an electric cooker. On Wednesday, H Mart in Englewood had long, slender Chinese eggplants on sale for 49 cents a pound. Unfortunately, you can't rely on every H Mart to have the same item on sale at the same time.

Costco Wholesale v. Trader Joe's: Who has the besto pesto?

The color difference between Trader Joe's prepared pesto (dark green) and Costco Wholesale's pesto is dramatic when used on a smoked wild-salmon frittata just out of the oven, above. Costco's refrigerated product also has more flavor and costs less per ounce.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After Costco Wholesale unveiled its own prepared basil pesto under the Kirkland Signature house brand, I ended the three-decade practice of making my own at home.

I used a blender recipe from Italian chef Marcella Hazan that calls for 2 full cups of fresh basil leaves -- the key to achieving the flavor and aroma that reminds me so much of spring.

I first tasted pesto with pasta in Nice, on the French Riviera, in the early 1970s, and continued to order it in restaurants in Manhattan and New Jersey, but only that first plate rivaled the flavor of Hazan's version.

I even tweaked her recipe by eliminating the butter, making sure I packed the 2 cups of basil leaves and using less salt, given the sodium in the grated cheese used to make the pesto.

Checkout at Trader Joe's in Paramus is really customer friendly. The employee removes items from your cart, scans them, bags them and puts the bag or bags in your cart -- usually. But Trader Joe's doesn't give customers credit for bringing reusable bags. For that, you'll have to go to ShopRite and Whole Foods Market.

False start

Prepared pesto showed up at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack a few years ago. I tried it once and was disappointed. For one thing, it was too salty.

Then, it was replaced by Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto, which uses 100% Genovese basil from Italy, extra-virgin olive oil; Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese, also from Italy; and the pine nuts that are used in every Italian recipe.

Trader Joe's or Trader Giotto's Genova Pesto doesn't indicate where its basil comes from, and it uses "olive oil" and walnuts, instead of pine nuts.

Genova is Genoa, the Italian port city where pesto originated.

Trader Giotto's pesto has less total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and carbohydrates than Costco's pesto.

But it also has less flavor, and when I prepared organic whole-wheat shells with Trader Joe's pesto, I felt the dish needed salt. I added freshly cracked black pepper instead.

Organic whole-wheat shells from Whole Foods Market with Trader Giotto's Genova Pesto.

More fiber, protein

Besides more flavor, Costco's pesto has more fiber and more protein than Trader Joe's pesto, and costs less per ounce. 

Both are refrigerated products, and Costco's version has a "use or freeze by" date clearly visible on the side of the plastic jar. I can't read the date in smaller type on the bottom of the Trader Joe's plastic container, especially against the dark-green pesto.

Trader Giotto's Genova Pesto comes in a 7-ounce container for $2.99 -- probably not enough to dress a pound of its own organic whole-wheat pasta.

You can also use pesto as a sandwich spread, and to garnish frittatas, omelets and other egg dishes; broiled fish, baked sweet potatoes and more.

If you buy three containers of Trader Joe's pesto (21 ounces) for about $9, you'd be an ounce shy of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto's 22-ounce jar, which costs $7.99.

A need to restrict your salt intake is the only reason I can see for buying Trader Giotto's pesto instead of Costco's version. 

A wedge of frittata with Trader Joe's pesto on top of leftover organic whole-wheat spaghetti with garlic and spinach makes for a filling breakfast.

Fresh, wild-caught Atlantic cod fillets from Costco Wholesale ($7.99 a pound) coated in a Super Spice Mixture, and roasted at 375 degrees for 10 minutes to 15 minutes, depending on their thickness. You also could dispense with the spices, cook the fish with a spritz of fresh lime juice and spoon on pesto when you take the fillets out of the oven. More pesto could go on the organic brown rice with canned kidney beans I prepared in an electric cooker.

Eating pesto morning, noon and night

Trader Joe's Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco Wholesale. After boiling and draining a half-pound of pasta, I placed it in a large bowl and added 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons of the refrigerated pesto, mixing the pasta and sauce well, then garnished them with whole pine nuts and shredded Kirkland Signature Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, below.

Do not heat the pesto before adding it to the hot pasta.

Costco Wholesale has made it much too easy to enjoy pesto at any meal.

Made from 100% imported Italian basil, Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto is far better than another Costco product I tried a couple of years ago.

This is typical of Costco, which often improves on another company's products and puts its Kirkland Signature brand name on the label.

For a terrific breakfast sandwich, I have spread Costco's fragrant pesto on two halves of a baguette, added sliced, reduced-fat Swiss and placed the halves under the broiler until the cheese melted.


Another great breakfast is an omelet or eggs sunny side up eaten with Trader Joe's Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti. 

An open-face, egg-white omelet with sliced cheese and pesto is a great eye opener.

  

Of course, pasta pesto can be enjoyed at lunch and dinner, too.

And a teaspoon or more of pesto will elevate any broiled fish fillet. 

The Basil Pesto, which comes in a 22-ounce clear plastic jar, is made from a half-dozen ingredients, including what is described as "pure, sweet basil" from the region of Liguria and Pecorino Romano sheep's milk cheese.

I have always preferred to make my own pesto, because I use far more basil than just about anyone else, but Costco's version is the best substitute for homemade I've found. 

Here is a recipe for Blender Pesto from a post I wrote in January:

Marcella Hazan's Blender Pesto Recipe 

Does besto pesto come from a Costco Wholesale warehouse?

Costco Wholesale says the basil in its Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto comes from Italy.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The blend of basil, cheese, olive oil, garlic and pine nuts called pesto adds a summer accent to dishes all year around.

After my first taste of pesto 40 years ago in Europe, I found a great blender recipe and enjoyed the basil-based sauce with pasta, fish and egg dishes.

The Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto "uses only Genovese Basil grown in the Liguria region of Italy, which is a narrow strip of mountainous land bordering the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding the city of Genoa [where pesto originated],"  according to the label.

A 22-ounce bottle, enough for 2 pounds of pasta, was $7.99.

A teaspoon of Costco pesto on an egg-white omelet.

The blender recipe from chef Marcella Hazan calls for 2 cups of fresh basil leaves -- packed -- and the result is a great-tasting pesto.

The Kirkland Signature pesto is fragrant and tastes good, but the first ingredient listed is a "basil blend" of leaves, oil and cheese.

I haven't tried Costco's pesto with the imported artisan egg tagliatelle noodles I found at my Hackensack warehouse store last week, but as of now, I give the edge to Hazan.

Of course, Costco's pesto will have to do until basil appears in the market or starts growing in my garden again.

Here is Hazan's recipe for making pesto in a blender, minus salt and butter.

She used two kinds of cheese, but I use only grated Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese.

I use the "Chop" setting on my blender -- a slow speed that allows me to push down the basil, garlic and other ingredients as the blender worked.

BLENDER PESTO

Enough for 1 pound or 6 servings of pasta

2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed with a heavy knife blade and peeled

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1. Put the pine nuts, garlic cloves, basil and extra-virgin olive oil in the blender and mix at slow speed.  Stop from time to time and scrape the ingredients down toward the bottom of the blender cup with a rubber spatula.  

2.  When the ingredients are evenly blended, pour into a bowl and beat in the two grated cheeses by hand. (This is not much work, and it results in more interesting texture and better flavor than you get when you mix in the cheese in the blender.)  If you do not want to use the pesto immediately, put it into a closed container and freeze it before you add the cheese.

3. Before spooning the pesto over the pasta, add to it a tablespoon or so of the hot water in which the pasta has boiled.  Do not heat the pesto before you add it to the pasta.

Note: The best pesto has a great deal of basil in it. I use leaves and stems, and pack a measuring cup with it. The more basil, the better. I've also added mint, rosemary, arugula, parsley and other herbs, but think basil makes the best pesto.

Simply prepared food invites you to dig in

Two organic eggs with sauteed cabbage and salted cod fish.

Pan-fried whole fresh croaker with mashed sweet Kabocha squash

Mashed squash reappears at breakfast with eggs and sun-dried tomatoes.

Wild king salmon and whole-wheat spaghetti, both with freshly made pesto.

Pasta and egg whites with pesto are a healthy alternative to bacon and eggs.

Here is Marcella Hazan's recipe for making pesto in a blender, minus salt and butter.

She used two kinds of cheese, but I use only grated Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese.

I made pesto a few days ago, and used the "Chop" setting on my blender -- a slow speed that allowed me to push down the basil, garlic and other ingredients as the blender worked.

BLENDER PESTO

Enough for 1 pound or six servings of pasta

2 cups fresh basil leaves 

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed with a heavy knife blade and peeled

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1. Put the pine nuts, garlic cloves, basil and extra-virgin olive oil in the blender and mix at high speed.  Stop from time to time and scrape the ingredients down toward the bottom of the blender cup with a rubber spatula.  

2.  When the ingredients are evenly blended, pour into a bowl and beat in the two grated cheeses by hand. (This is not much work, and it results in more interesting texture and better flavor than you get when you mix in the cheese in the blender.)  If you do not want to use the pesto immediately, put it into a closed container and freeze it before you add the cheese.

3. Before spooning the pesto over the pasta, add to it a tablespoon or so of the hot water in which the pasta has boiled.  Do not heat the pesto before you add it to the pasta.

Note: The best pesto has a great deal of basil in it. I use leaves and stems, and pack a measuring cup with it. The more basil, the better. I've also added mint, rosemary, arugula, parsley and other herbs, but think basil makes the best pesto.

Have your own Wild-Salmon Festival

Fresh wild sockeye salmon with leftovers from Wondee's in Hackensack.

Wild-caught salmon, homemade shrimp and broccoli with fresh garlic.

Wild salmon with pesto and leftover pasta from BV Tuscany in Teaneck.

Editor's note: Today, I've included a recipe for Blender Pesto. Pesto -- basil, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts and grated cheese -- goes perfectly with fish, especially wild salmon from Alaska.

  
With fresh wild salmon from Alaska now selling for under $10 a pound at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, I'm throwing my own festival at home.

My wife brought home a nearly 2-pound fillet of Copper River salmon for $9.99 a pound this past Friday, and we're working our way through the seven or eight portions I prepared in a preheated, 400-degree oven.

The week before, Copper River salmon dropped to $8.99 a pound from $13.99 a pound, so now, it is only $1 or $2 more a pound than artificially colored farmed Atlantic salmon.

Before I cooked the wild-salmon portions, I squeezed on fresh lime juice and sprinkled them with Aleppo red pepper. The portions cooked through in 10 to 12 minutes.

When I took them out of the oven, I spread pesto on each juicy piece. I reheat the leftover fish in the microwave for about 1 minute.

I roast the heart-healthy fish on aluminum foil sprayed with oil, so the skin doesn't stick. 

I found a container of pesto in the freezer, marked "8/3/09," but it was fine, and I added grated Pecorino Romano sheep's milk cheese, also from Costco.

Here is the Marcella Hazan recipe I use:

BLENDER PESTO

Enough for 1 pound or 6 servings of pasta

2 cups fresh basil leaves 

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed with a heavy knife handle and peeled

1 teaspoon salt (optional)

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

2 tablespoons freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1. Put the pine nuts, garlic cloves, basil and extra-virgin olive oil in the blender and mix at high speed.  Stop from time to time and scrape the ingredients down toward the bottom of the blender cup with a rubber spatula.  

2.  When the ingredients are evenly blended, pour into a bowl and beat in the two grated cheeses by hand. (This is not much work, and it results in more interesting texture and better flavor than you get when you mix in the cheese in the blender.)  If you do not want to use the pesto immediately, put it into a closed container and freeze it before you add the cheese.

3. Before spooning the pesto over the pasta, add to it a tablespoon or so of the hot water in which the pasta has boiled.  Do not heat the pesto before you add it to the pasta.

Note: The best pesto has a great deal of basil in it. I use leaves and stems, and pack a measuring cup with it to get 2 cups you need. 

The more basil, the better. I've also added mint, rosemary, arugula, parsley and other herbs, but think basil makes the best pesto.

The original recipe included 4 tablespoons of butter, but I eliminated that decades ago.

Of course, you don't have to eat pesto with pasta. You can spread it on bread or toast for sandwiches or on top of fish right after you take it out of the oven.

Today, for a snack, I spread some of the pesto that I had left on a slice of wild smoked salmon and rolled that up with a piece of sliced cheese.

Smoked wild salmon and eggs, above and below, would be wonderful with pesto.

Organic whole-wheat pasta and wild salmon with pesto.

Wild salmon with organic brown rice and carrots.