At Costco, plenty of wild salmon plus lower prices on almonds, quinoa

Fresh wild sockeye salmon from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro ($9.99 a pound), grilled on the stove-top and accented with homemade basil pesto, torn basil and ground Aleppo pepper.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The fresh wild salmon is running once again at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

I found a small refrigerated case filled with many packages of skin-on salmon fillets last Tuesday, and they were priced at a friendly $9.99 a pound.

That contrasts with shortages of fresh wild sockeye in June.

Easy grilling

Six serving portions of wild salmon needed only 7 minutes on a stove-top grill over medium-high heat (4 minutes on the skin side, then flip them for 3 minutes).

I seasoned the fish with Himalayan Pink Salt from Costco and fresh lime juice before grilling, and accented then with homemade basil pesto and torn leaves from plants in my garden. 

Six portions of fresh wild sockeye salmon cost about $17, enough to feed four with leftovers.

Kirkland Signature Almonds come in a new 3-pound bag and at a lower price, below. The raw, sodium-free almonds make a great snack after I roast them at 275 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes, then dust them with Ground Saigon Cinnamon, also sold at Costco.

Once sold in a 4-pound bag under the Nature's Intent label, Organic Quinoa now comes in a larger, 4.5-pound bag with a Kirkland Signature label, at a new, lower price, below, even without an instant rebate.

Nature's Intent Organic Quinoa -- prepared in an electric cooker with whole peeled garlic cloves, organic diced tomatoes, olive oil and salt -- is a great side dish with wild salmon and a stuffed egg-white omelet. With fewer carbs than rice or pasta, quinoa also is a good bread substitute.

Costco Wholesale seems to be the only store that doesn't offer organic whole wheat pasta from Italy. I've purchased various shapes at Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Market and ShopRite. Now, the Teterboro warehouse is offering Organic Chickpea Fusilli Pasta with the color of the whole wheat product, but at more than three times the price per pound, below.

Made in Nature Organic Pitted Dates, above, and Organic Smyrna Figs, below, are unsulfured, meaning they are free of a preservative, and have no added sugar. They taste great with those almonds from Costco.

Himalayan Pink Salt, once available only in a Kirkland Signature grinder, now comes in a 5-pound container that is ready to use in salt shakers, below. It claims to be the purest salt in the world.

These sweet peppers from Canada were labeled non-GMO.

Fresh Peeled Garlic from Miami-based Garland Food appears to have replaced the peeled California Garlic sold under the Christopher Ranch label. Last week was the first time we found a 3-pound bag of Garland garlic that didn't appear to have any dark-colored, soft cloves ($7.29). The label says the garlic comes from Argentina.

Now, Costco members can use Visa credit or debt cards at the food court in Teterboro. A large cup of Kirkland Signature Nonfat Vanilla Yogurt was $1.35.

How to keep the almonds and lose the salt

Image via Wikipedia

Shelled almonds, like the raw, unsalted ones available at Costco.

I've cut down almost completely on bread and pizza to lose weight,  but find myself snacking frequently on crunchy roasted or blanched almonds from Costco in Hackensack.

But as I wrote in a previous post, salt in the almonds became a concern after I looked at the labels and discovered the more expensive Kirkland Signature Marcona blanched almonds from Spain have twice as much salt as the Kirkland dry-roasted almonds from California. 

Comparing salt

A 28-gram or 1-ounce serving of the Spanish almond contains 9% sodium, compared with 4% for the same serving size of the California almond (on the daily value scale). The former costs $7.99 for 17.63 ounces, while you'll pay $8.89 for 40 ounces of the latter. They are both delicious.

So I bought a three-pound bag of Kirkland Signature raw, unsalted almonds and added some of them to the jar of the Kirkland dry-roasted almonds, but I found the raw almonds weren't my cup of tea.

I fished them out, and put them in the oven for an hour at a low 250 degrees, and they took on a nice crunch. I then roasted the rest of the raw, unsalted almonds. When the salted almonds are finished, I'll just buy the unsalted ones, roast them and put them in the empty jar.

By roasting the raw almonds, I've eliminated salt from a favorite snack, which is delicious when paired with fruit and cheese, and saved money, too. Three pounds  of raw almonds cost only $9.99.

The label notes almonds are a heart-healthy food. They are described as U.S. #1, "supreme whole." 

Breakfast from Costco

My breakfast organic spring mix salad with wild lox, sheep's milk and reduced-fat Swiss cheeses, sun-dried and fresh Campari tomatoes, and sliced cucumber -- all of it came from Costco in Hackensack.

So did the Dijon mustard in my dressing of Greek extra-virgin olive oil and Italian balsamic vinegar. If you have to give up bread, a filling salad is one way to compensate. 

Dinner from H Mart

I found fresh, wild-caught whole whiting at H Mart in Fort Lee for $3.49 a pound on Monday, as well as bunches of fresh spinach for $1.79 each. 

I cut the two fish into two or three pieces and cooked them in Chinese cooking wine, sesame oil, fish sauce, soy sauce (with ponzu) and chopped fresh ginger.

I washed and then blanched the spinach in hot water, put it into a second pan with a little olive oil and seasoned it. 

I served the fish and spinach with organic brown rice cooked in organic chicken broth, both from Costco. (I let the rice soak in the broth in a rice cooker for several hours.)

We started off with kimbap -- seaweed-wrapped rolls of rice, vegetables and imitation crab meat. I found a 22-ounce package for $4.99 in the prepared-food section of H Mart.