Read the label, buy good ingredients and prepare simple meals at home

REDEFINING PLAIN: Before I grabbed a big canister of half-price "plain" bread crumbs at ShopRite in Paramus, I read the label. Then, I changed my mind. They contain high fructose corn syrup, sugar, honey, corn flour, milk, buttermilk, preservatives and other ingredients. 

Hunt's Tomatoes also were on sale at the Paramus ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east, but they contained added sugar, something you also find in nearly every bottled pasta sauce these days.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you want to avoid lots of sodium, added sugar or other undesirable ingredients in the food you buy, you'll have to pay attention to the small print.

Reading the ingredients label is a must.

Eggs, rice and other food labeled organic means they are free of pesticides and genetically modified ingredients (GMOs).

But you also find produce like the incomparable, hothouse grown Campari Tomatoes, sold in 2-pound packages at Costco Wholesale, labeled with the stamp of the Non-GMO Project.

You also have to worry about sugar, which is added to bread, pasta sauces, salsas and so many other products.

GOING ORGANIC: Two organic, free-range eggs served over organic brown rice --prepared in a rice cooker with organic chicken broth, diced tomatoes and black beans -- make a filling and delicious breakfast (hold the bread).

Baked or mashed sweet potatoes are another bread substitute, here with a plain egg-white omelet filled with a little grated cheese and Mexican-style salsa.

This egg-white omelet is stuffed with smoked wild sockeye salmon and salsa, both from Costco Wholesale in the Teterboro Landing Shopping Center off of Route 46.

Whole King Whiting were $3.99 a pound at the H Mart in Little Ferry. With a central bone, whiting are among the easiest whole fish to eat. My wife seasoned serving pieces of the whole fish and pan-fried them in olive oil.

We boil sweet potatoes and whole garlic cloves, then drain and mash them with extra-virgin olive and seasonings, including red-pepper flakes, black pepper, cinnamon and garam masala.

Serving portions of fresh, wild-caught Icelandic Cod fillets ($7.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale) poach in under 10 minutes once you bring Roasted Poblano Salsa from Whole Foods Market to a boil and cover the pan, below. The salsa is free of added sugar. The garnish is fresh parsley and basil, and Aleppo red pepper.

I add a little sea salt to the fillets, and dilute the thick salsa with the juice of two fresh limes. A 16-ounce jar of salsa is enough for 2 pounds to 2.5 pounds of skinless and boneless cod (four generous servings with brown rice, whole wheat pasta or sweet potatoes).

This morning, a breakfast of leftover cod, organic brown rice and an egg-white omelet stuffed with reduced-fat cheese and salsa was a great start to the day.

We're loving Costco Wholesale more, but visiting the warehouse less

Triple-washed Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix is ready to go from the package to your plate, and Costco Wholesale's price is the best in northern New Jersey.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The price of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, the world's best store-bought salad, hit a low of $4.29 a pound last week at Costco Wholesale.

And the Teterboro warehouse has added more organic products under the Kirkland Signature house label, including marinara sauce and pignoli nuts.

Still, we're cutting our visits to once every two weeks from once weekly, because the Teterboro Costco, like the smaller Hackensack warehouse it replaced, is just too popular.

The Teterboro Costco opened in mid-October in a Route 46 shopping center that is a work in progress, and parking is always tight.

And the store itself is far larger than the Hackensack warehouse, so we're still familiarizing ourselves with where everything is.

But even with all that extra room, the warehouse always seems to be crowded, and that may be because Costco signed up more than 1,000 new members in the days after the Teterboro warehouse opened. 

The one salvation is that check-out seems faster and more efficient than it was in Hackensack, and the receipt checkers at the door don't hold you up when the warehouse is busy.

Costco Wholesale sells smoked wild Alaskan sockeye salmon two ways, including this fully cooked fillet made with brown sugar that doesn't require refrigeration before it is opened. 

The slow-smoked salmon fillet from Trident Seafoods lists only 1 gram of sugar for a 2-ounce serving. The 1.5-pound fillet I bought in December was $15.97, and carried a use-by date of 2021.

Smoked salmon 2X

One must be kept refrigerated, and tastes like salted slices of raw fish -- good in omelets, salads and eaten out of hand.

The other, with a shelf-life of more than 5 years, is both sweet and salty, and tastes great on its own or in salads.

The Wild Alaskan Smoked Sockeye Salmon from Kirkland Signature and Trident Seafoods both use the same heart-healthy fish, but the resulting product couldn't be more different.

The thicker, skin-on sockeye salmon fillet from Trident Seafoods tastes closer to canned fish. Add it to a salad for a light dinner with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.

Pitted olives, shaved Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, Campari Tomatoes and cucumbers over Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, all dressed in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

An organic spring-mix salad with organic pignoli or pine nuts.

Pine nuts are one of the ingredients in Costco's wonderful prepared Basil Pesto, so they make a terrific garnish for Organic Whole Wheat Shells with Pesto and Black Truffles. The small $10 bottle of truffles from the Teterboro warehouse didn't have much flavor, but that may because I didn't have enough for the pound of pasta I prepared. On a travel show I saw recently, a waiter in a restaurant in Italy shaved a couple of ounces of large black truffles over a single dish of pasta.

Snowy fillets of fresh wild-caught flounder after they were poached in pre-heated Roasted Poblano Salsa made creamy with no-fat Greek yogurt. The fish was $7.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale, and the salsa came from Whole Foods Market, where the 365 Everyday Value brand contains no added sugar.

Price checks

My wife made our last visit to the Teterboro Costco on Wednesday, about two weeks after her previous trip. 

She brought home: 2 pounds of Campari Tomatoes, the only way to get through a winter without Jersey tomatoes ($4.99); 10 pounds of California carrots ($6.49); 5.5 pounds of Gala Apples from Washington State ($9.99), and that 1-pound tub of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.29).

The price of the organic salad mix fluctuates throughout the year, but the highest I've seen at Costco is $4.99, compared to $6.99 at ShopRite supermarkets.

Three large, long hothouse cucumbers were $3.49. They carried a label with a weight of 2 pounds, but were fatter than usual and on my kitchen scale hit 3.3 pounds.

A 2-pound bag of Organic Green Beans -- washed, snipped and ready to use -- was $5.99.

Raw, sodium-free California Almonds were $17.99 for a 3-pound bag. We roast them and dust them with cinnamon for snacking. 

A 5-pound bag of large limes from Mexico was $5.79. Six Hass Avocados from Chile were $3.99.

Two 3-liter bottles of Pure Olive Oil, a cooking blend that includes extra-virgin olive oil, was $27.99 or about $4.67 a liter.

Olive oil doesn't contain genetically modified ingredients (GMOs), unlike many others for cooking, including soy, canola and corn oils.

Organic Whole Wheat Fusilli from Whole Foods Market dressed with no-added-sugar Botticelli Marinara Sauce from ShopRite, and sardines and anchovies from Costco Wholesale. I also added a few ounces of red wine, extra-virgin olive oil, red-pepper flakes, granulated garlic and other seasonings to the sauce before I heated it up.

Rebates on way

In the next few weeks, I'm anticipating the arrival of rebate checks from American Express and Costco that more than cover my annual executive membership fee of $110.

A regular membership is $55 a year.

The American Express rebate is 2% for purchases at Costco, and we also earn cash back at restaurants, gas stations and other stores.

On top of that, we get a 1% rebate from Costco on everything we buy in the Teterboro warehouse.

Shop Whole Foods Market's frequent sales, rely on great return policy

Whole Foods Market's 365 Everyday Value Mexican-style salsas, shown at the Paramus store, can be used to poach fish fillets or in omelets.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Whole Foods Market's 365 Everyday Value products aren't always organic, but their price and quality give other supermarkets a run for their money.

I've come to rely on two 365 Everyday Value products, a line of non-organic salsas and organic whole-wheat pastas from Italy in several shapes.

Last Saturday, I drove over to the Paramus Whole Foods to get a refund for frozen turkey parts, and discovered the store was knocking 10% off all 365 Everyday Value items.

I picked up 1-pound boxes of Organic Whole Wheat Fusilli and Shells for $1.49 each, and a 25-ounce jar of 365 Everyday Value Organic Italian Herb Pasta Sauce with no sugar added for $2.99, both before the discount.

ShopRite and Trader Joe's also sell organic whole wheat pasta, but you won't find any shells, which "catch" the sauce in which you prepare them.

Whole Foods' 365 Everyday Value salsas are terrific for poaching eggs or fish fillets -- they serve as both cooking medium and sauce for a side dish of rice or pasta.

A 24-ounce jar of Roasted Salsa Verde was $3.99, and 16-ounce jars of Roasted Poblano and Roasted Chipotle Salsas were $2.99 and $2.69, respectively, all before the 10% discount.

At $1.99 each, these 25-ounce jars of 365 Everyday Value Pasta Sauce, with no sugar added, are competitive with sauces you'd find at ShopRite and other supermarkets. The Whole Foods' pasta sauces have added value, because they are free of genetically modified ingredients (GMOs).

Great return policy

My wife likes the Whole Foods' case holding frozen meat, including antibiotic-free chicken backs, necks and feet for soup.

But she doesn't like the larger frozen turkey parts, as I discovered when I brought home turkey backs and giblets with a gift card I got for Christmas.

It was no problem returning them without a receipt, and the refund was put on a gift card that enabled me to buy 365 Everyday Value salsas, organic pasta sauce and organic whole wheat pastas that were on sale.

I had to pay only another 86 cents.

With organic food and produce widely available at ShopRite, Costco Wholesale and other stores, I'm able to shop only occasionally at Whole Foods, especially when the store is having a sale, including discounted wine and seafood.

They are a good deal for me and other consumers.

Whole Foods Market, 300 Bergen Town Center, Paramus; 201-266-1244.

Open 7 days from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., but less busy on weekdays.