More food photos: Home cooking sparkles with flavor, but holds the fat

GLOBAL BREAKFAST: Clockwise from top, two prepared items from H Mart in Englewood, Stewed Tofu and Stewed Alaskan Pollock; a baked sweet potato and a wedge of black-olive frittata.

GOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN: Last week, the H Mart at 25 Lafayette Ave. in Englewood put two large bunches of spinach on sale for 99 cents. They cooked in minutes in a large covered pan with olive oil and sake, with added sea salt, garlic powder and other seasonings.

NO SHELL GAME: I ate the spinach with a generous serving of leftover organic whole wheat shells from Whole Foods Market ($1.49) prepared in marinara sauce with anchovies and sardines. I used a 40-ounce jar of sauce, 1 pound of pasta, 1 can of anchovies, drained and rinsed; and 3 cans of sardines, plus red wine, extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings.

SUNNY SIDE UP: I fried two organic eggs with grated cheese and Aleppo pepper, and ate them with leftover pasta, tofu and stewed pollock, a member of the cod family.

CRUNCHY SALSA: Fresh organic salsa from Costco Wholesale (2 pounds for $7.99) brightens a breakfast of sweet potatoes, mashed with extra-virgin olive oil, and a simple egg-white omelet dusted with Moroccan spices.

TASTES GREAT: Big Taste Tomatoes were on sale last week for 99 cents a pound at the ShopRite in Paramus. They taste as good as the smaller Campari Tomatoes sold at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro for more than twice the price. Here, I enjoyed them with a bowl of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.29 at Costco).

SNOWY FISH: A 1.86-pound skinless-and-boneless halibut fillet from Costco Wholesale ($18.99 a pound) served four. I prepared the fish with fresh spinach, pitted olives, fresh tomatoes, shredded cheese, sea salt and fresh lime juice in a large pan, and the meal was ready after 15 minutes in a pre-heated 400-degree oven. I served it with organic quinoa made in an electric cooker.

-- VICTOR E. SASSON

Costco prices are on the upswing again

Image via Wikipedia

The 2-pound package of Campari tomatoes from Costco has
shot up to $5.99. Above, the 1-pound package sold elsewhere.

I spent more than $100 on food at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on Wednesday, but a higher price prompted me to pass up one of my usual purchases.


Two pounds of those wonderful, small, round, hothouse-grown Campari tomatoes were $5.99, compared to $4.49 on Oct. 24. I passed.


I substituted 2 pounds of Roma tomatoes from the same grower, Sunset. They were $4.99, an increase of 50 cents.


A trio of large, hothouse-grown cucumbers were $3.99, up from $3.49 on Oct. 24. I bought those anyway.


I asked an employee why the Campari tomatoes had shot up, but he said he just stocks the produce aisles and doesn't notice prices.


Prices appear to be holding steady on other items I bought on Wednesday -- organic 1% milk, six small cartons of egg whites, 2 pounds of sliced cheddar cheese, dried blueberries, organic carrot juice, loaves of 100% whole grain bread, bananas, organic spring mix and marinara sauce.


The marinara comes in three 32-ounce bottles and is sold under the Kirkland Signature label, the Costco store brand. This is plenty for a full pound of pasta, and costs only $2.10 a bottle. 


A can of anchovies and oil cooks away, but adds robustness to the sauce.


Some of my purchases on Wednesday replaced items I had thrown out after heavy, wet snow from Saturday's nor'easter knocked out our electricity for 57 hours. Many thousands are still without power five days after the storm.


I also bought 5.5 pounds of large, crisp Gala apples from Washington State for $6.99, and a rack of pork, which my wife wanted to prepare for dinner. The pork was $3.99 a pound, with a discount of $2.50 on the package.


Even if I was eating meat, I wouldn't eat this pork, which was raised conventionally by one of the big producers. Pigs receive more antibiotics than all other animals raised on factory farms.


But my wife doesn't plan dinners, and because of trying to eat as much as possible before it spoiled on Sunday and Monday, we didn't have any drug-free meat or poultry in the freezer.


My dinner was organic spring mix topped with tomato, cucumber, olives and a can of Moroccan sardines, and I dressed the salad with extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice.


Later, I had one of the Gala apples with two kinds of cheese, almonds and dried dates that I also picked up at Costco.


On Tuesday, I stopped into ShopRite in Rochelle Park to replace the lactose-free milk I discarded, and picked up a half-gallon of the store brand ($3.29), Barilla whole-grain spaghetti (88 cents) and ShopRite low-fat fruit yogurt made with sugar (44 cents).


The pasta and yogurt were on sale, as were antibiotic- and hormone-free Omega 3 eggs from 4 Grain ($1.99). They made a nice scramble with a bit of milk, reduced-fat Swiss cheese and coarse Aleppo red pepper.


Related articles

• What makes Greek yogurt so pricey? (doyoureallyknowwhatyoureeating.blogspot.com)
• When meat divides a family (doyoureallyknowwhatyoureeating.blogspot.com)

Produce prices rise, quality slips at Costco

Image via Wikipedia

I dashed into Costco in Hackensack today for a few things, including organic spring mix and tomatoes. 

I also wanted a pound of Boskovich Farms organic spinach, but I could see many brown leaves in the two or three packages I picked up in the cold room. I passed.

The Earthbound Farm organic spring mix had a use-by date of May 4, so I took a one-pound package for $4.79.

The sign over the Sunset-brand Camapari tomatoes said the 2-pound package had jumped by 50 cents, to $5.99, but the first two packages I picked up showed rotting or a split skin. 

At checkout, the package of flawless orbs I chose rang up at the old price.

Recently, I bought two 1-pound packages of the same tomatoes at Fairway Market in Paramus for $5, saving a half-dollar. My wife complained they weren't as sweet as the ones from Costco.

I still haven't finished the three, large hothouse cucumbers I bought at Costco early last week. 

Parts were bitter or discolored, but I didn't have the energy to take them back and wait in line for a refund.

Some produce prices are actually falling

Image by JasonUnbound via Flickr

Don't expect to see one of these in North Jersey anytime soon.

Costco Wholesale has some of the best produce prices around -- if you insist on high quality -- but the warehouse store hasn't been immune from price hikes. Now, some items are actually selling for less than before.

Today, at the Hackensack store, I bought a pound of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix -- one of the most delicious bunches of leafy greens around -- for $4.39. That's 20 cents less than I paid on March 1, and 60 cents below the high of $4.99.

This is a pre-washed mixture that you can layer in a sandwich or put in a bowl, dress and eat.

Another favorite, pre-washed Boskovich Farms' U.S.-grown organic spinach, was $3.79 for a one-pound package -- 20 cents less than before. I use this spinach directly from the package, adding it to just-cooked pasta and sauce, and mixing them together until the spinach is wilted.

But they were the exceptions. Gala apples were $5.99 for 5.5 pounds, but today, they were $7.49. Bananas were $1.47 for three pounds -- about a dime higher than before.

Other items have held the line, including Sunset-brand large Gourmet cucumbers, three for $3.79, and Campari tomatoes, two pounds for $5.49.

Nothing fishy

The fish case at Costco in Hackensack yielded fresh, whole, cleaned, wild snapper from Brazil for $6.99 a pound and fresh, wild-caught flounder fillets from Canada for $7.99 a pound. Both were packed today.

I've solved the mystery of clashing labels on Campari Tomatoes

Sunset-brand Campari Tomatoes in 1-pound packages at Fairway Market in Paramus in 2012. Costco Wholesale sells the same tomatoes in 2-pound packages for a good deal less.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I thought I was seeing things:

Labels with and without the words "no herbicides" or "herbicide-free" on Sunset-brand Campari tomatoes -- those deep-red orbs small enough to pop into your mouth whole for an explosion of wonderful, tomatoey flavor.

I buy them at Costco, and when the words no longer appeared on the label, I thought this must be another kind of Campari tomatoes grown with herbicides, so I went looking for the herbicide-free line elsewhere. I didn't find it. 

Prices are all over the place. At Costco, they are $4.99, $5.29 or $5.49 for a 2-pound package; ShopRite in Rochelle Park actually had the nerve to put them out for $7.99.

Today, I looked at the Web site and could find no mention of herbicides, though there was an indication that "good bugs" in the greenhouse eat "bad bugs." 

Then, I called Mastronardi Produce in Canada, the greenhouse growers of the Sunset brand, and was assured the company still uses no herbicides or pesticides, but has been prohibited from saying so on the Web site or product labels by a new Canadian law that went into effect at the end of last year.

The woman I spoke to suggested the Canadian government, being unable to verify such claims, decided to ban the use of those words on produce labels to eliminate misrepresentation by unscrupulous growers.

That puts my mind at rest. I'm just finishing up a package of Campari tomatoes I bought for $4.99, and I'll be sure to get more, if they are available at that price.

Sunset produce Web site