If meals could speak, mine would tell tales of the sea

A breakfast of leftover organic whole-wheat linguine with bottled marinara and added sardines, anchovies, red wine and seasoning, served with two small wedges of pesto-and-cheese frittata. Most of the ingredients come from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Life, cooking and food shopping are so much easier when you don't eat meat and poultry.

You never have to worry about whether the food you are eating was raised with antibiotics and hormones that are harmful to humans or what the animal was fed before it was slaughtered.

You never have to imagine the horrors of the slaughterhouse or wonder if that steak came from a sick animal that collapsed, only to be dragged to its death.

None of those issues arise with wild-caught seafood.

Fresh fish is cheap, and you can avoid ingesting a lot of mercury by sticking to the smaller species, including anchovies, sardines, whiting and so forth.

Canned-fish salad includes yellow-fin tuna, pink salmon and Moroccan sardines with chopped celery and sweet peppers. The dressing is Dijon mustard, fresh lime juice and ground cumin, all to taste. Costco carries the mustard, limes and all three canned fish.

Cholesterol drops

I stopped eating meat and poultry more than four years ago, and my cholesterol has dropped to where I plan to ask my doctor if I can discontinue the statin I have been taking for decades.

The other members of my family still eat meat and poultry, meaning we often have to prepare two dinners.

I try to steer them to organic or grass-fed beef and antibiotic-free chicken and lamb at Whole Foods Market, Costco Wholesale and ShopRite.

Kimchi from Costco

I do eat organic chicken stock from Costco Wholesale, using it instead of water when I prepare brown rice and lentils in an electric cooker.

This morning, my wife called from Costco to ask if I wanted a large jar of kimchi for $7.99, but when she read the ingredients I noticed it included beef-bone extract.

I told her not to buy it.

Our favorite kimchi comes from the Oh family, which closed their Englewood business, but haven't re-opened yet in Ridgefield.

We always had a jar of their Arirang Kimchi in the refrigerator, but now, we only eat the spicy, fermented cabbage and other types of kimchi when we go out to a Korean restaurant.

Escoveitch of fish.

Ackee and salt fish, the Jamaican national dish, accented with Valentina Mexican Hot Sauce and served with garlic mashed sweet potatoes. My wife used salted Alaskan pollock from Costco instead of the Canadian dried cod the Hackensack warehouse store no longer carries.

Good food that won't clog arteries or add inches

A well-balanced meal of whole Spanish Mackerel, stir-fried asparagus and quinoa with Korean seasoned vegetables. The fish was poached in a sauce of organic diced tomatoes, red wine, Dijon mustard and non-fat Greek yogurt.

The fresh-fish display at H Mart, the Korean supermarket in Englewood, where the wild-caught, silvery Spanish Mackerel were $3.99 a pound on Thursday. Fresh-water carp was 99 cents a pound, but I would have had to buy the whole fish, which looked like it weighed 20 pounds or more.

Canned-fish salad (pink salmon, yellow-fin tuna and sardines) with Earthbound Farms Organic Spring Mix, Sunset-brand cucumbers and Italian olives.

I added a Gala Apple, above, and diced celery, garlic and onion to the canned-fish salad, along with Dijon mustard, ground cumin and fresh lime juice, all to taste.

The crusty, butter-free baguette from Balthazar Bakery in Englewood is still only $2. I slice and freeze it for sandwiches for other members of the family, but allow myself only the "heel" or end of the loaf with a big dinner salad.

Hemp is a legal variety of cannabis (marijuana) that is grown for fiber and seeds, such as the nutty tasting Hemp Hearts I found at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack last week, above with a salad and below. A 28-ounce bag was a pricey $14.89.

Manitoba Harvest raw, shelled hemp seeds are a product of Canada, vegan and made with 100% wind power, according to the bag, and are good for sprinkling on salads, cereal and yogurt.

Wild-caught haddock from Iceland coated with a Super Spice Mixture and served with brown rice and diced organic tomatoes prepared in an electric cooker. The spice mixture is made by combining every spice and dried herb I have in the house in a large plastic container, which I keep in the refrigerator.

Salted cod fish with whole-wheat fusilli pasta in bottled sauce, above, and with onion, sweet pepper, tomato and ackee, a Jamaican fruit available in cans, below.

All of the canned, fresh and salted fish I used in these home-cooked meals came from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack or H Mart, a Korean supermarket in Englewood.

H Mart also sells 16 ounces of seasoned vegetables for bibimbap, a rice-based comfort dish, but I used them with organic quinoa and didn't add the usual ground beef (Jinga Seasoned Vegetables, $7.69).

The best 100% whole-wheat pasta I've found comes from Trader Joe's, where it is only $1.39 for a full pound and organic, too.

Organic diced tomatoes, organic brown rice, organic quinoa and Earthbound Farms Organic Spring Mix are available at Costco Wholesale. 

Imported canned ackee in brine is available at ShopRite in Rochelle Park and Hackensack Market on Passaic Street.