New food items at Costco Wholesale

Kirkland Signature Organic Salsa at Costco Wholesale.

After we stopped eating meat at the end of February, I started noticing all the alternatives that are sold at Costco. 

I am not a big fan of prepared food. Most of the stuff I've tried from Trader Joe's, for example, were one-time purchases. But Costco is selling some keepers.


We really love the Boca-brand soy burger (16 patties for $9.49). We usually heat these in the oven, cover them with a slice of cheese and then add onion, ketchup, mustard and so forth. 

Every time we have this meatless burger, we also heat up Dr. Praeger's spinach cake -- small, tasty disks of spinach and potato (20 for $8.99).


Costco also sells two wonderful cheese-and-vegetable quiches that make a great dinner with the addition of a homemade salad. One is made with asparagus, the other with artichoke, and they are packaged together (I don't have the price).


I recently tried the mango juice in aseptic containers from Brazil Gourmet. It's thick, sweet and delicious, despite being a 100% juice blend ($11.69). It's the only mango juice I've found to rival the pure mango juice sold in Cuba.


Pasta Prima's lobster ravioli actually have lobster in them, and the lobster flavor is noticeable. You get two servings for two or three people for $11.99. They don't even need sauce -- just a drizzle of good olive oil and cracked black pepper.


Another recent purchase are 100% whole grain tortillas from the Sante Fe Tortilla Co. You get 20 large, soft tortillas for $3.99, a good buy. 

This tortilla rivals Trader Joe's handmade tortillas, which are pricier. I just popped a Sante Fe tortilla, slice of cheddar cheese and salsa in the microwave for 45 seconds for an instant quesadilla. Yum.


On Tuesday, I bought burgers made from wild Pacific salmon (keta and pink), oil and spices that are sold under the Trident label. You get 12 for $12.99, but I had a $3.75-off coupon. We haven't tried them yet.


Looking for an alternative to Rosa Mexicano Restaurant's $12 guacamole (one avocado), I picked up three, one-pound portions made with Hass avocados for $7.99 on Tuesday. 

They are sold under the Wholly Guacamole label, and are made with jalapeno, onion, garlic and salt. They can be frozen, too.

Shopping and tasting notes

Image by Tony the Misfit via Flickr

When you live in Hackensack, as I do, it doesn't make sense to do takeout from Aleppo, my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant in Paterson. But on the way home from Morristown yesterday on Route 80, it was an easy detour to buy our dinner and stock up on Syrian bread, sardines, canned hummus and other items. (Photo: Great Falls in Paterson.)

My first stop was the parking lot in front of Fattal's Bakery on Main Street. I bought 10 cans of sardines (99 cents to $1.09 each); three dozen fresh pocket breads ($1.50 a dozen), canned hummus ($1.09), hot peppers ($2.99 a pound) and homemade spinach-and-cheese pies ($8.99 for six).

At Aleppo, less than two blocks away at Main and Thomas streets, I asked Halla the waitress for a bowl of lentil soup -- a delicious puree scented with cumin and served with small pieces of fried bread and lemon. I also ordered takeout -- fried whiting with rice, the hot pepper dip called muhammara, hummus and fried cheese turnovers.

The fish, oily rice, dips and turnovers made another satisfying, meatless dinner. Tomorrow will mark our third week without chicken, beef, pork or lamb, and I still haven't run out of menu ideas. I've actually dropped a few pounds and can fit into my old jeans again.


Thursday night, we enjoyed Boca-brand soy burgers with cheese on yeasty Balthazar Bakery potato-onion rolls. I made a Syrian-style fingerling potato salad: extra-virgin olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, allspice, coarse Aleppo red pepper and salt to taste, and also served an organic green salad.

I'm not sure where we'll be eating tonight -- our weekly dinner out -- but I have lobster ravioli and corn-and-crab chowder in the freezer for Sunday dinner.

Although we haven't been buying meat, I've noticed ShopRite hasn't put free-range, grass-fed Australian beef on sale for weeks, but continues to discount conventionally raised U.S. beef and chicken.

Monotony is setting in

Image via Wikipedia

My 12-year-old son was the first to use the word "monotony" to describe the meatless, fish-heavy meals we have been preparing at home for the past two weeks. Today, that word echoed in my head as I made my weekly trip to Costco in search of more variety.

I picked up Boca-brand soy burgers and frozen Maryland crab cakes at the Hackensack store, but passed on frozen mahi-mahi fillets and frozen Icelandic fish and chips, because I still have lots of frozen Pacific flounder and frozen Alaskan sockeye salmon, which I steamed in an Asian sauce and served with instant mashed potatoes and salad last night.

I walked warily past the Australian lamb I used to love to see what was in the fresh fish case, and startled a woman with a warning about the farmed salmon she was looking at. Damn. No fresh, wild-caught haddock, thick, meaty fillets that would be great fried -- my son's favorite preparation.

So, it looks like Maryland crab cakes (without the garnish shown in the photo above) and lots of frozen vegetables for dinner tonight. I'm not proud. If you have an idea for a meatless dinner, please pass it along.