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.

California peaches, Costco rebates, cooking bargain dishes at home

Large California peaches from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack and smaller ones from ShopRite in Paramus, upper right, never ripened after we brought them home.

Grilled fresh Wild Copper River Sockeye Salmon from Alaska with Pesto and a side of Organic Whole Wheat Shells, but no grilled peaches. The skin-on fillets were $14.99 a pound on Tuesday at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

The Costco Wholesale cash rebate I received this week is about $245, more than double the $110 I pay for an annual executive membership. This check is in addition to several hundred dollars in rebates from American Express, which issues the Costco credit card.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

We had our hearts set on preparing grilled Fresh Wild Salmon with Pesto and Ripe Peaches, but fruit from drought-stricken California didn't cooperate.

Today, my wife got a full refund of $9.99 for a 5-pound box of large California Peaches she purchased at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on June 9.

Two of the four smaller California Peaches I bought at ShopRite in Paramus for $1.69 a pound are on my kitchen counter and look like they'll rot before they ripen.

I sprayed oil on a grill pan that covers two burners of my stove, and allowed it to warm up over medium heat before adding the salmon skin side down, above, covered with fresh lime juice and a little sea salt. Total cooking time was 10 minutes, the same amount it took to cook the organic whole wheat shells in boiling, unsalted water.

When the fillets firmed up, I flipped them.

Aleppo pepper, fresh herbs from the garden and Costco's Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto were added at the end.

 

I finished my dinner with a salad of green-leaf lettuce from the garden.

Local and not so local

I'm all in favor of eating local, but my salmon dinner tonight brought together ingredients from Alaska (the fish), California (the red wine I drank), Italy (basil in the prepared pesto and organic whole wheat pasta), Spain (extra-virgin olive oil for my salad), and Syria or Turkey (ground Aleppo red pepper).

For the pasta dressed in Costco's Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto with added pine nuts, I used Whole Foods Market's 365 Everyday Value Organic Whole Wheat Shells from Italy ($1.49), but ignored the listed cooking time of 14-15 minutes.

They were al dente in 10 minutes.

My salad contained green-leaf lettuce from our garden, dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and I also accented the fish with chopped oregano, mint and parsley we grew.

An egg-white omelet stuffed with smoked wild Alaskan salmon, shredded cheese and pesto.

Costco's 100% egg whites, basil pesto and smoked wild salmon are all sold under the Kirkland Signature label, the house brand, which usually signals premium quality.

Sockeye two ways

On Tuesday, along with a fresh sockeye fillet, my wife picked up a pound of Costco's wonderful smoked wild Alaskan salmon, sliced in two half-pound pouches ($15.99).

Even though it is previously frozen, this fish is silken when eaten out of hand or rolled up with a slice of reduced-fat Swiss cheese, dipped in Dijon mustard if you like or stuffed with salad greens.

I also use it to fill egg-white omelets, adding pesto and fresh herbs from the garden.

Costco cash rebates

The 2% cash rebate check I received this week from Costco Wholesale ($244.99) was the third this year.

Two checks containing several hundred dollars came from American Express' True Earnings credit card for purchases at Costco, restaurants, gas stations and other stores.

My executive membership costs $110 annually.

Fresh whole red snapper were on sale for $4.99 a pound on Sunday at H Mart in Englewood, a discount of $3 a pound. Mustard greens also were on sale for 99 cents a pound.

My wife cut up two wild red snappers weighing a total of more than 5 pounds, and seasoned and pan-fried them before pouring hot vinegar, sweet pepper, onions, garlic and pimento berries or allspice over the fish.

I sauteed two 5-ounce packages of triple-washed Organic Baby Spinach, Bok Choy and Kale on their expiration date with olive oil and sake, then used them as a side dish or to stuff an egg-white omelet, above. The packages were on sale for 99 cents each at the International Food Warehouse in Lodi.

Greens and sweets for breakfast: Leftover mustard greens with chopped fresh garlic, fresh callaloo with sweet peppers, and sauteed arugula, all served with mashed and baked sweet potatoes. A 5-ounce package of pre-washed arugula was on sale last week for 99 cents at the International Food Warehouse.

Two real time savers: Cooking ahead and leftovers

A 10-inch frittata with smoked wild salmon and sun-dried tomatoes is enough for several meals, especially when you serve it with such leftovers as brown rice and pasta.

Here, a wedge of the frittata made a filling breakfast with leftover brown rice and garlic-sauteed Black Tiger Shrimp.

For dinner, I enjoyed a wedge of another frittata, with reduced-fat cheese and homemade pesto, above, over leftover whole-wheat fusilli and sardines, below.

For the frittata, I used a mixture of 8 ounces of Kirkland Signature Egg Whites, 4 Organic Brown Eggs, grated Pecorino-Romano Cheese and low-fat organic milk, all available from Costco Wholesale. I added slices of reduced-fat cheese and spoons of pesto once the mixture had set in a 10-inch non-stick pan on the stove, then finished the frittata under a low broiler setting in the oven.

Editor's note: Today, I discuss real time savers in the kitchen, Costco Wholesale's Greek Yogurt, the Summer Can Can Sale at ShopRite and other food-related matters.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

I buy good ingredients -- including organic eggs, brown rice and pasta -- and I cook them in quantity, ensuring leftovers.

Those leftovers cut down on meal-preparation time, allowing me to plate them and reheat them in a microwave in just 2 or 3 minutes.

I use 2 full cups when I prepare brown rice in an electric cooker, and 1 pound of pasta when I make whole-wheat spirals with sardines.

If I'm making mashed sweet potatoes with extra-virgin olive oil, I use 2 pounds or one bag from Trader Joe's.

Then, I can enjoy rice, pasta or sweet potatoes at breakfast or dinner in the next week with a main dish I prepare fresh -- such as wild salmon with ripe peaches and tomato.

My wife and teenage son nag me about many things, but I nag them about only one thing: Eat the leftovers.

My wife bought six fresh, wild-caught sea bass at H Mart in Englewood for $4.99 a pound, and we enjoyed the leftovers over the next couple of days.

When boiling 1 pound of Trader Joe's Organic Whole Wheat Fusilli or other pasta, use  only enough water to cover. It isn't necessary to salt the water, because bottled sauce and other ingredients already contain plenty of sodium.

A 24-ounce bottle of vodka sauce, an 8-ounce can of tomato sauce, a drained and rinsed can of anchovies; and four plump Moroccan sardines, from 2 cans, also drained and rinsed, go into the preparation of fusilli with sardines. I chop the sardines with a wooden spatula, and also use a few ounces of extra-virgin olive oil, a little red-pepper flakes and dried Italian herbs.

The selection of vinegars and olive oils at Jerry's Gourmet and More in Englewood, above, and part of the dried pasta section, below.

Garofalo 100% Whole Wheat farfalle, left, and pappardelle, right, are more expensive than the organic whole-wheat pasta available at Trader Joe's, but the latter is available in only three shapes.The farfalle was $1.99 a pound at Jerry's and the mouth-filling papardelle was $2.59. Trader Joe's spaghetti, fusilli and penne are $1.39 a pound.

Imported clementines in July? These 5-pound boxes I saw at H Mart in Little Ferry were from South Africa, not Spain or Morocco.

I bought a 3-pound bag of salt-free, raw almonds at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on Monday ($12.99), and roasted them at 275 degrees on parchment paper for 1 hour and 20 minutes. After they cooled, I dusted them with Saigon Ground Cinnamon, also from Costco. The warehouse store now offers plastic jars of roasted mixed nuts without sodium.

Also at Costco, a 6-pound box of large California peaches was $8.99, and a 5-pound box of Beefsteak Tomatoes was $6.29. When they are ripe, I'll use them to prepare wild sockeye salmon with cinnamon (suggested by my teenage son), capers and garden herbs. A 1-pound package of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix was $4.79, little to pay for the best-tasting, store-bought salad in the world.

On Saturday, 11-ounce dry pints of New Jersey blueberries were 2 for $4 at a D'Agostino in Manhattan, the same price I paid at H Mart in Little Ferry on Sunday ($1.99 a pint) and ShopRite in Paramus on Monday (2 for $4).

Pricey Greek yogurt

Greek yogurt is strained -- so it's thicker and more concentrated than other yogurts, and has more protein. 

Is that why it's so expensive? 

Does a 6-ounce cup of Greek yogurt have "more" yogurt and less whey than a 6-ounce cup of ShopRite yogurt, which is about half the price?

At Costco Wholesale on Monday, I picked up 15 6-ounce cups of non-fat Chobani Greek Yogurt with peaches, blueberries or strawberries for $13.69 after an instant coupon of $4.20.

That's about 91 cents each.

Costco also sells its own Kirkland Signature  plain non-fat Greek Yogurt in a 32-ounce size (2 for $6.99) that I use in smoothies with bananas, frozen strawberries and juice, all from Costco.

Four boxes of Ziploc Gallon Freezer Bags at Costco contain 152 bags for a total of $11.99 or less than 8 cents each. They also are BPA-free.

A poster inside a Starbucks at Spring and Crosby streets in the SoHo section of Manhattan.

Three men hunched over their fast-food meals appear to be ignoring the suggestion they "Savor Each Moment" on the idealized photos inside a Burger King near the New Jersey entrance to the Holland Tunnel. I had stopped for coffee.

Summer Can Can Sale

The Can Can Sales aren't what they used to be at ShopRite, the dominant chain in North Jersey and the acknowledged low-price leader.

Manufacturers aren't subsidizing the sale as they did in the past, and that's reflected in higher prices.

The Summer Can Can Sale, which began on Sunday, is offering 12-can packs of Adirondack Seltzer at 2 for $5 or $2.50 each, compared to $1.99 in the past.

But 33.8-ounce bottles of Adirondack Seltzer are 5 for $2, a better buy than packs of 12-ounce cans.

Buying the bottles also addresses my chief complaint about the cans -- 12 ounces really isn't enough for one meal and 2 cans are too much. Half a 33.8-ounce bottle is just right.

I stopped drinking teeth-corroding Coke and Pepsi in the early 1970s, and lost a lot of weight.

My waist size dropped to 34 inches, and I recall buying the last two bathing suits in that size at Bloomingdale's in Manhattan, as two other customers who flanked me at the counter waited in vain.

Poland Seltzer

At the Paramus ShopRite, I saw 33.8-ounce bottles of Polar Seltzer for 80 cents each -- twice the sale price of the Adirondack Seltzer.

I also noticed Polar Quinine Water contains high-fructose corn syrup.

Also at the Summer Can Can Sale, red grapes were 99 cents a pound, a discount of 50 cents a pound.

Pure Instant Tea

But I searched in vain for ShopRite Pure Instant Tea, a black powder I've been using for years to make iced tea, adding water, fresh lime juice and mint from the garden.

A 3-ounce jar makes 30 quarts of unsweetened tea, according to the label on a half-empty bottle I have left from last year.

A ShopRite employee said the item has been discontinued, which I confirmed today in a call to Wakefern Food Corp., an Elizabeth-based, retailer-owned cooperative that supplies many ShopRites.

No bread, no pizza, no meat, no problem

A frittata made with three reduced-fat cheeses, tomatoes and pesto, above and below, oozing like the deep-dish pizza I deny myself to maintain my weight loss.

Most of the ingredients are available at Costco Wholesale. To prepare a 10-inch frittata, see Do you know how to do 'The Frittata'?

Do I miss bread and pizza, which I gave up a couple of years ago to lose weight, at the suggestion of my trainer at the gym? Absolutely.

I no longer have a trainer, but I'm still on a no-bread, no-pizza diet.

What I don't miss is the 48 pounds I've lost, giving me -- someone who has been overweight for most of his adult life -- a feeling of being relatively light on my feet.

My weight recently hit a plateau in the 179-181 pound range, compared to a high of 228 pounds in 2010.

A wedge of the deep-dish frittata with Della-brand organic brown rice from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack and stewed tofu from H Mart in Englewood.

Go brown

I've substituted brown rice, whole-wheat pasta and mashed sweet potatoes for white rice, conventional pasta and white potatoes.

I've added organic quinoa to my diet, making 2 cups at a time to provide a side dish for 4 or 5 breakfasts and dinners. 

I finished the quinoa on Wednesday morning. So I made 2 cups of organic brown rice with diced organic tomatoes in an electric cooker for the next set of meals.

Fluffy organic quinoa has fewer carbohydrates than rice or pasta. Here, I ate the whole grain with Chinese cabbage and spicy tofu from a restaurant that didn't have brown rice.

Instead of having bread with these organic eggs accented with pesto, I filled my breakfast plate with squash, sweet potato and sauteed cabbage with sweet peppers.

Two fish are better than one, as in this dinner of fresh wild salmon from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack and pan-fried whole whiting, which were $3.49 a pound at H Mart in Englewood.

I also gave up meat and poultry more than 3 years ago out of concern over all the antibiotics and growth hormones used to raise animals on factory farms, and the lack of information on most restaurant menus.

I've switched to seafood, especially wild-caught whole fish and fillets.

I also favor anchovies, sardines, whiting and other small fish that contain very low levels of mercury.

Homemade Black Tiger garlic shrimp and whole-wheat spirals with sardines.

Food discounts

Jerry's Gourmet & More and H Mart, both in Englewood, discount prepared food after 4 p.m.

Jerry's knocks $2 off its restaurant-quality Meals To Go, cutting the price for a complete dinner of fish, chicken or pork with pasta and other sides to $5.99.

Jerry's added a sign to the refrigerated case to make its Meals To Go easier to find. The small yellow stickers on the cover indicate a price cut to $5.99 from the regular price of $7.99 after 4 p.m.

H Mart, the Korean supermarket, cuts the price of Jinga-brand prepared rolls (kimbap) and other food  by 50% after 4 p.m.

On Wednesday, I picked up a seaweed-wrapped roll with fish sausage and egg for $2.50 instead of $4.99.

I also found a box of 20 small, yellow, intensely sweet Ataulfo Mangoes for $9.99, a discount of $6.

But my wife said the Englewood H Mart was selling the 20-package Shin Ramyun box of spicy noodle soup at full price, forcing me to drive to the Little Ferry H Mart on Wednesday to buy it on sale for $14.99, a discount of $3.

Kimbap and Korean pickles from H Mart in Englewood.

Weight-losing strategies that work for me

Mashed sweet potatoes stand in for fattening white potatoes at any meal.

Sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. 

Brown rice, not white rice. 

No bread or toast at breakfast, but a bed of whole-wheat pasta for your eggs or egg-white omelet is perfectly fine and filling.

These are some of the strategies I've used to lose weight and keep it off since I gave up bread and pizza at the suggestion of a trainer at my old gym.

From a high of 228 pounds, I've reached a comfortable weight of under 185 pounds.

Organic eggs with manchego cheese and pesto over whole-wheat pasta.

It should go without saying that I don't eat dessert, unless it's ripe fruit with a great of piece cheese or an occasional sorbet.  

I've also stopped eating meat, meaning I can afford to eat a variety of full-fat, reduced-fat and skim-milk cheeses, and whole eggs. 

My overall cholesterol is about 140.

Seafood is a delight -- from Maine lobster to whole wild-caught fish to fillets flown here from Canada, Iceland and other countries.

I eat a lot of organic salad mix, tomatoes and cucumbers. I make canned fish salad with tuna, salmon and sardines, and eat it over salad, not in a sandwich. 

Kashi Trail Mix and and other bars allow me to skip lunch.

 

In the past, a snack would be cheese, smoked wild salmon, canned fish salad and other items, but I'd always eat them tucked inside Syrian pocket bread.

Now, I roll up slices of cheese and smoked salmon, dip them in mustard and eat them out of hand.

A spoonful of peanut or sodium-free almond butter is terrific followed by a spoonful of fig marmalade.

Fig marmalade goes beautifully with slices of manchego, a sheep's milk cheese from Spain. 

The almond butter is great over apple slices.
 

A spoonful of fig marmalade goes well with cheese.

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• More wonderful things to eat

How long will DePiero's be around?

The entrance to DePiero's Country Farm store on a hill in Montvale.

Stairs to the store's gift and housewares loft.

No visit to Montvale would be complete without stopping at the hilltop store of DePiero's Country Farm.

Unfortunately, all of the fresh, local produce and the relaxed food-shopping experience soon may be just a memory.

If town officials approve, half of the farm's 55 acres will be used to build a huge Wegmans Food Market, displacing the homey farm store.

The Wegmans would be the chain's first store in Bergen County.

The Wegmans in Woodbridge is an enormous 140,000 square feet -- bigger than any other supermarket in Bergen.

Photos of the Woodbridge Wegmans 

On Monday, I stopped at DePiero's for a large cup of soup and purchased sweet corn, romaine lettuce, basil and leeks, all grown on the farm.

Fragrant basil, above. Romaine lettuce and leeks, below.

In late afternoon, customers arrived in twos and threes, but the store never got crowded.

The thick, meatless lentil soup was delicious.

When I got home, I shucked and steamed the bi-color corn, which was sweet and need nothing (6 ears for $3.50). 

It was far superior to corn I picked up last week at the Ramsey Farmers' Market.

I chopped some of DePiero's fresh basil, along with oregano and mint from my garden, to use with fresh wild king salmon on Tuesday night.

I plan to use the rest of the basil to make pesto, which is wonderful with fish.

A plastic spoon stood up easily in the thick soup.

Halloween costumes are available now.

DePiero's greenhouse.

DePiero's Country Farm Store, 300 W. Grand Ave., Montvale; 201-391-4576. Open 7 days until 6 p.m.

Web site: An Old-Fashioned Farm