A late-summer bounty of wild salmon, tomatoes, peaches and more

Grilled fresh wild sockeye salmon from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro ($9.99 a pound), in a thick sauce of Salsa Roja from Whole Foods Market, Costco's organic diced tomatoes and fresh lime juice. A 2.3-pound fillet fed four with leftovers at a cost of less than $6 a person.

Using spray oil on a grill pan that straddles two burners on the top of our stove, I cooked seven serving pieces of the wild salmon over medium-high heat for 6 minutes to 8 minutes,  turning them once.

I plated all of the salmon, added the sauce and ate mine with leftover organic quinoa prepared in an electric cooker with cherry tomatoes from our garden, organic black beans and peeled garlic cloves.

We pick the cherry tomatoes when they are still green and let them ripen on the kitchen counter.

A box of large mangoes from Brazil was $8.99 last Sunday at H Mart in Little Ferry.

This morning, I made a simple 10-inch frittata with egg whites, plenty of grated cheese, cherry tomatoes, store-bought Romana Tomatoes, red-pepper flakes, Costco's Organic No-Salt Seasoning and dried mint.

Large South Jersey peaches from Costco (6 pounds for $7.99) started rotting on the kitchen counter two days after my wife brought them home, so I refrigerated them overnight, then trimmed and grilled them on the stove top to eat with eggs or fish.

Red snappers weighing 3 pounds to 4 pounds were on sale for $6.99 a pound last Sunday at H Mart in Little Ferry. My wife seasoned the cleaned whole fish, stuffed it with fresh okra, wrapped it in aluminum foil and baked it in the oven at 375 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

A breakfast of Eggs in a Bowl, fried sweet plantains and a Spinach Empanada from Fusion Empanada, 838 Main St., Hackensack (1-201-880-9800).

For Eggs in a Bowl, my wife broke two whole organic eggs into an oven-proof bowl, seasoned them and added sweet pepper, onion and cherry tomatoes before baking them until the mixture browned on top.

My wife reheated two baked Shrimp Empanadas, one Lobster Empanada and one Spinach Empanada she picked up the day before ($3 for spinach, $3.50 for lobster or shrimp, including dipping sauces).

For a great side dish at any meal, I saute Earthbound Farm's Deep Green Blend of Organic Baby Kale, Chard and Spinach in olive and sesame oils, a little cheap sake and Costco's Organic No-Salt Seasoning, a blend of 21 spices and other ingredients. 

A 1.5-pound bag of the Deep Green Blend was $4.99 at the Costco Wholesale Business Center in Hackensack.

-- VICTOR E. SASSON

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.

You can enjoy perfectly grilled, juicy wild salmon in only 6 minutes

Fresh wild sockeye salmon from Costco Wholesale spends only 6 minutes on a preheated stove-top grill. Here, I served it with Costco pesto and organic salsa, as well as chopped mint and other herbs from our garden.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

We cook fresh wild salmon at home nearly every week during the season, which runs from June to October at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

A friend who just returned from a vacation in Alaska reported rivers are thick with salmon struggling to swim upstream and lay their eggs.

The price of fresh wild sockeye fillets has fallen steadily since June, and I've learned a thing or two about cooking this wonderful fish on a preheated stove-top grill.

For one thing, I was cooking the fillets too long -- 8 minutes to 10 minutes.

I reduced the cooking time to 6 minutes, and they came out juicier.

The longer cooking time is appropriate for wild king salmon fillets, which are thicker than sockeye.

Wild sockeye fillets are thinner and smaller than both king and Costco's artificially colored farmed Atlantic salmon, which are probably raised on antibiotics.

I usually get six serving pieces from about 2 pounds of wild salmon, and add sea salt and fresh lime juice before arranging the pieces skin-side down on the large, rectangular preheated grill.

The All-Clad Grill is 20 inches long and 13 inches wide, and the fish cooks best at both ends -- over the burners.

Quick dinners

Besides quick-cooking wild fish, my strategy for putting a meal on the table in less than 10 minutes includes making such side dishes as quinoa, brown rice, pasta and baked or mashed sweet potatoes in large quantities.

Then, you can plate and reheat some, add your wild salmon, enjoy dinner and finish with a big salad of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, also from Costco. 

In the morning, two organic eggs, sunny side up, are wonderful over sweet potatoes mashed with extra-virgin olive oil, especially when you break the yolks over them.

The All-Clad Grill I use straddles two burners of my stove. I preheat it, use spray oil and turn the heat on both burners to medium-high before adding the fish, skin-side down. After 3 minutes, I turn the pieces, and then again onto the skin for the last minute. If you're serving the salmon with ripe peach halves, grill them first, because they need much more time.

A package of 2 pounds of Fresh Wild Sockeye Salmon yields about six serving pieces.

An electric cooker full of organic brown rice, organic diced tomatoes, low-sodium red beans and chopped fresh garlic, prepared with extra-virgin olive oil. The leftovers allow you to put dinner or breakfast on the table in minutes.

Fresh Wild Salmon with Organic Diced Tomatoes

Fresh, wild-caught sockeye salmon from Costco Wholesale was $10.99 a pound this week, but a 1.5-pound fillet is enough to serve a family of 5.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

If you can open a can, squeeze a lime and chop fresh herbs, Fresh Wild Salmon with Organic Diced Tomatoes is a snap to prepare.

I rely on Costco Wholesale for wild-caught fillets of sockeye salmon caught in the U.S.A., as well as for limes and cans of Organic Diced Tomatoes.

The herbs come from my garden. 

I cut a 1.5-pound fillet ($10.99 a pound) into 5 pieces, squeezed fresh lime juice over them and sprinkled them with chopped mint and oregano, and ground Aleppo red pepper (optional).

Then, I spooned Organic Diced Tomatoes over the salmon pieces and placed them into a pre-heated 375-degree oven.

I line the pan with parchment paper from Costco, and don't have to use spray oil.

 

The thickest part of the fillet was cooked rare after 10 minutes. Add 3 minutes to cook through.

I served the salmon with leftover Lundberg Wild Blend Rice, a GMO-free mixture of wild, brown and black rices available from Costco.

The sockeye salmon was $10.99 a pound this week, up a dollar from the week before.

I also picked up a 2.5-pound bag of frozen wild-caught Hake Loins, a meaty, white fish that makes for excellent eating ($13.99).

As with other frozen fish, I will probably steam the hake or bake the fillets in parchment-paper pouches.

A package of Michigan Blueberries, the equivalent of 3 pints, was $4.99. And 2 pounds of those incomparable Campari Tomatoes were $4.49. 

A 'pan pizza' without the fattening dough.

A gooey frittata

A frittata with tomato sauce, pesto and gooey cheese can fool you into thinking your eating a pizza, but you won't have to worry about fattening dough.

I used slices of reduce-fat Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese,  fresh Beefsteak Tomato slices and Organic Tomato Sauce -- all from Costco -- and my own homemade pesto sauce.

A wedge of frittata with Wild Blend Rice.

A mixture of 4 whole organic brown eggs, 8 ounces of Kirkland Signature Egg Whites, a little low-fat milk, grated cheese and Organic No-Salt Seasoning go into a preheated 10-inch pan with extra-virgin olive oil. After the bottom is set and the other ingredients are added, the frittata is finished under the broiler until the cheese oozes and the top browns (low setting).

When package information lets you down

Blue Hill Bay, sold at Costco Wholesale, is distributed by Acme Smoked Fish Corp.

Once in awhile, I am disappointed in a product I buy from Costco in Hackensack, and that's the case with smoked steelhead trout sold under the Ruby Bay label. 

In this case, though, it's the Acme Smoked Fish Corp. that is to blame -- for leaving out important information on the origin of the fish and distracting me and other shoppers with meaningless claims.

At Costco on March 1, I bought a 12-ounce package for $9.49 -- or about 80 cents an ounce. That compares to 96 cents an ounce for Kirkland Signature smoked wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, which contains no preservatives.

Wild sockeye salmon. (Wikipedia)

Unfortunately, the Ruby Bay package doesn't tell you this is farmed fish, as I learned by calling Acme Smoked Fish. However, I didn't ask where the fish was farmed. 

On Friday, I looked into Costco's fresh-fish case, and saw farmed steelhead trout. The label said it was from Chile and that it was colored artificially by chemicals in the feed. 

So, is Acme's steelhead also colored artificially? The label says it's "All Natural" and contains "No Preservatives."

Anyway, although the steelhead tastes good, it pales when compared with the smoked wild sockeye salmon. I have a few ounces of the former left, but once it's gone, I'll never buy it or any other Acme Smoked Fish Corp. product.

Six months without meat

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I'm not sure what I expected, but going without meat for six months hasn't resulted in anything dramatic -- except a sense of relief from not always having to worry how the poultry, beef, pork and lamb were raised before I got to them in stores.

My overall cholesterol dropped only four points -- to 176 -- probably because I started eating much more full-fat cheese than before. In the last month or so, I've switched to low-fat cheese and plan to resume eating aged Parmigiano Reggiano (photo), which is made with skim milk.  

I don't think I saved money, because the seafood I substituted for meat often cost more, including Costco's wild sockeye salmon and farm-raised prawns from Vietnam that weigh about two ounces each (eight to a pound) and cost a small fortune.


Do I feel better? Yes. But I can't separate the effects of going to a gym five mornings a week for the past two months or so, and the lighter feeling of not being weighed down by meat.


I've always loved salads and grilled vegetables, and I've been eating them more frequently and incorporating greens and vegetables into sandwiches and frittatas or just eating them on their own.


Last Sunday, I picked up fresh mustard greens and two heads of arugula at the Tenafly farmers' market.


One morning, I quickly blanched the mustard greens, then poured some extra-virgin olive oil and Costco egg whites into a 10-inch, nonstick frying pan. When the eggs set on the bottom, I added the mustard greens, sliced beefsteak tomato and low-fat cheese; sprinkled on some salt and finished the frittata under the broiler. (Preparation tip: Chop greens into bite-size pieces to make frittata easy to portion and eat.)


Today, I made a breakfast sandwich with grilled eggplant and carrot, baked wild salmon with herbs straight from the fridge, cheese and fresh arugula, spreading toasted 100% whole-grain bread with Dijon mustard. Outrageously good.


A friend who is a faithful Costco food shopper invited me over for a lunch the other day and served me items from the warehouse store: A Greek salad with anchovies and crumbled cheese, and a fruit salad with mango, strawberries and other fruit. We had an appetizer of spicy hummus and  drank coffee and seltzer.


For the last few weeks, I've wanted to add antibiotic-free poultry back into my diet -- Readington Farms chicken from ShopRite and turkey parts and duck from Goffle Road Poultry Farm in Wyckoff.

But I haven't done that yet, secure in the knowledge there are so many other good things to eat that don't involve meat.

Go fish for meat substitutes

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In a few days, it will be five months since I have eaten meat -- poultry, pork, beef and lamb -- but only the availability of great seafood has seen me through.


In the past two weeks, I had fresh, wild-caught fish in restaurants, as part of takeout and at home. 

Esca, Fig & Olive and Anthos restaurants in Manhattan serve wonderful fish, and Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood usually has a fish selection or two among its restaurant-quality Meals To Go ($6.99). Finally, Costco sells extraordinary seafood at low prices year-round.

At Esca , I had a wonderful  lunch of halibut cheeks and a pair of beautiful yellow-fin tuna medallions with rare centers. Though Fig & Olive didn't serve bread, I really enjoyed a caramelized fillet of snowy cod served in a bowl over vegetables and broth. Anthos won me over with salmon tartare, raw fluke and an incredibly thick and moist skate wing.


At Jerry's, I picked up a dinner with grouper in fresh herbs, which came with breaded artichokes, cauliflower, vegetable dumplings and potatoes. 

This morning, I had the last of six portions of the wild sockeye salmon fillet I bought at Costco and baked until it was medium ($8.99 a pound). I ate most of the fish in sandwiches for breakfast or over salad for a light summer dinner, stuffing salmon and dressed greens into warm halves of pocket bread.

Hope you like the new design I've applied to the blog. It's called Simple.

(Photo: Sockeye salmon.)

Cooking for one isn't easy

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My wife and son are away, meaning I do less food shopping and much less cooking. In fact, with the heat waves we've been having, I may cook a meal once a week, if that, and my meals are a lot less formal.


The other night, I used organic spinach leaves to cover a Napoletana pizza with fresh mozzarella and red sauce from Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood ($4.99), added a few cherry tomato halves from the garden, seasoned it and drizzled on extra-virgin olive oil. I popped it into a 375-degree oven for less than a half hour.


The chewy dough crisped up a bit and the spinach softened. Half of the 12-inch pizza, a big salad with cucumber from the garden, wine and seltzer made a fine dinner.


Last week, I boiled a half-pound of rigatoni and in a separate pan, heated up half of a 32-ounce bottle of marinara sauce with added seasonings and red-pepper flakes, plenty of fresh spinach and cherry tomato halves. I was out of anchovies, but would have added them to the sauce.




At the table, I was liberal with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, poured myself a glass of red wine and used toasted baguette to sop up the remaining sauce. I also ate that with a big salad. The leftovers made a second meal. 


At Costco in Hackensack, I bought a 1.73-pound, skin-on fillet of fresh wild sockeye salmon ($8.99 a pound, product of USA) on Tuesday, cut it into six portions; added fresh lemon juice, salt, Aleppo pepper and chopped parsley and other herbs; and baked it at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes for medium. I gobbled down one portion down without salad or bread, and it was moist, fatty and delicious.


This morning, I made a sandwich on 100% whole grain toast for breakfast: half a portion of baked wild salmon, a slice of smoked wild sockeye, leftover spinach frittata, tomato from the garden, romaine lettuce and Dijon mustard. It was terrific, though too big to fit in my mouth.


The remaining baked wild salmon will be wonderful right out of the fridge with a big salad or on another sandwich, and should last me through the week.


For snacks, I have plenty of Washington State cherries, Jersey blueberries, roasted almonds and low-fat cheese on hand.

Low, low price for wild Alaskan salmon

Fairway Market in Paramus has a sale on wild Alaskan salmon fillet for $6.99 a pound, but this comparatively low price may not be as good as it looks.

Fairway's circular tells you where the fish was caught, but doesn't tell you what kind of salmon is on sale. Is it silverbrite or sockeye, the red-orange fillets Costco has been selling for months at $8.99 a pound? Sockeye has a higher oil content, meaning you get more of those beneficial Omega-3 fatty acids. Only king salmon has a higher oil content.

Fairway also is selling USDA prime top round London broil for $2.99 a pound, but this beef doesn't come close in quality to the drug- and hormone-free, free-range, grass-fed Australian beef tenderloin I bought on sale this year with a Price Club Card at ShopRite for the same price. I still have plenty of it in the freezer.

Fairway's sale starts today and ends Aug. 28.

You've got to watch that wild salmon

I've said more than once that the fresh wild sockeye salmon from Costco will be ready after only 10 to 12 minutes in a 350-degree oven. Last night, the six pieces I cut from a fillet were done in only 8 minutes (medium to medium rare).

This latest fillet likely was thinner than the ones I bought before. So keep your eye on this fish and adjust the cooking time according to the thickness. I seasoned it with salt, cumin, Aleppo red pepper and chopped fresh oregano.

Eight minutes. Just enough time to grab a fistful of pre-washed organic salad greens and dress them with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, warm some bread and pour myself a glass of wine. Here's to good eating.

'Why is it so red?'

On my weekly trip to Costco in Hackensack today, I was fishing for another fillet of the fresh, wild sockeye salmon I have been enjoying for a couple of months ($8.99 a pound). "This is really good," I said to the woman next to me, referring to the salmon. "Why is it so red?" she replied.

I pointed to the word "wild" on the sign and tried to explain deep orange-red is the natural color. I don't think I got through to her. Not far away were shrink-wrapped packages of farmed Atlantic salmon whose artificial color is pale by comparison. This is the color people have become used to associating with salmon.

I've read that salmon farmers are shown a color palette and that the feed is then tailored with chemicals to produce the desired color. Wild salmon, on the other hand, get their color from a natural diet of shrimp and krill, which contain beta carotene.

I'll cut my wild salmon fillet into five or six portions; season it with salt, Aleppo red pepper and fresh, chopped oregano; and bake it for 10 to 12 minutes at 350 degrees for medium rare. I can't wait for dinner.