Home cooking: Pulling together great ingredients from my favorite stores

For a snack at home, I layered smoked wild Alaskan salmon, reduced-fat Swiss cheese, Dijon mustard and sliced California black figs on Swedish crispbread, topping them with fresh mint leaves from my garden.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Swedish Food Market at IKEA in Paramus stocks a lot of bottled herring with way too much salt and fruit drinks with too much added sugar.

But the simple Swedish crispbread is irresistible: 

These crunchy disks -- each about 3 inches across -- invite you to layer cheese, smoked salmon and fresh figs on them for a midday snack.

Or, you can top them with sliced cheese, organic greens and tuna salad dressed with Dijon mustard, lime juice and ground cumin.

IKEA sells two kinds -- Rye Crispbread and Multigrain Crispbread, both made in Finland -- in 8.8-ounce packages for $2.99 each.

I rely on Costco Wholesale in Teterboro for smoked wild Alaskan salmon ($14.89 per pound), reduced-fat sliced Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese (2 pounds for only $6.69 with an instant coupon last week), and Dijon mustard.

I picked up a pound of California Black Figs for $3.99 at Trader Joe's in Paramus, but had to refrigerate them to prevent spoilage.

I baked a pan of Fresh Wild Coho Salmon from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro with fresh spinach, organic diced tomatoes, pitted black olives, grated cheese, olive oil (on the spinach), fresh lime juice (on the fish) and fresh herbs from my garden.

I cut up the fillet, cooked the pieces skin-side down on a stove-top grill for 4 minutes, then placed them on the spinach. The pan spent another 7 minutes in a preheated 400-degree oven. The organic diced tomatoes were cooked separately with red wine and seasonings, and were added along with the chopped herbs when the pan was removed from the oven.

Fresh wild salmon

If the past is any guide, fresh wild salmon will be available at Costco in Teterboro for another month or so.

Last week, my wife found a Fresh Wild Coho Salmon Fillet instead of the sockeye we've been buying since June ($9.99 a pound).

Meanwhile, I went to the Costco Business Center in Hackensack for a 1-pound package of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.89), the world's best-tasting salad.

The price fluctuates, and earlier this year, Costco was selling it for only $4.29 a pound, compared to $6.99 in most supermarkets.

When buying the salad, select packages that have little or no condensation to avoid the greens rotting before their use-by date, which is printed on the front label.

No dinner is complete without a salad and a glass of red wine.

A salad of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix with cherry tomatoes from our garden and kernels shaved off an ear of sweet Jersey corn, dressed simply with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The Organic Spring Mix has a new label, but the triple-washed greens are as delicious as ever. Earthbound Farm added the words "grown without GMOs," "a blend of tender baby greens" and "a versatile classic" to new label. See the ingredients, below.

The Earthbound Farm label on the back or bottom of the package.

Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix can go straight from the container onto a plate or into a bowl. Here, I added cucumbers and our cherry tomatoes. Three large hothouse cucumbers from Costco Wholesale were $3.49.

I also like the Spring Mix from Olivia's Organics, but even on sale at H Mart in Little Ferry (5 ounces for $1.99), you'll pay more per ounce than at Costco for a 1-pound tub of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix.

With Kirkland Signature 100% Liquid Egg Whites from Costco, you can eat an omelet or frittata every day and not worry about cholesterol. Six 16-ounce cartons were $8.79.

At H Mart in Little Ferry on Sunday, Baby Mustard Greens, above, were on sale for 78 cents a pound; and Chinese Eggplant, below, were 99 cents a pound.

I grilled the eggplant slices on the stove top with spray oil and a little salt.

At ShopRite, my wife picked up a carton of Barilla Whole Grain Spaghetti made with 100% whole wheat, which I prepared with olive oil, fresh garlic, cherry tomatoes from our garden and homemade pesto. But the package was a couple of ounces shy of a pound and cost more than the 1-pound package of Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti, which ShopRite also sells ($1.29). The cooked organic spaghetti feels better in your mouth, too.

When you buy six bottles of wine with prices ending in "9" at Total Wine & More in River Edge, you get an additional 10% off. I purchased six bottles of Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Cabernet and Carmenere for an average of under $7 each, plus tax.

Details

For fresh wild salmon and fresh fish from Iceland, smoked wild Alaskan salmon, Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, fresh organic spinach, Dijon mustard and so many other great ingredients at great prices:

Costco Wholesale, 2 Teterboro Landing Drive, Teterboro; and Costco Wholesale Business Center, 80 S. River St., Hackensack.

For California Black Figs, organic sweet potatoes, organic whole wheat pasta; Green Plant, a 100% fruit and green food juice blend with no added sugar, and antibiotic- and preservative-free beef hot dogs and bacon:

Trader Joe's, 404 Route 17 north, Paramus.

For cans of pitted black olives, conventional sweet potatoes, grass-fed Australian beef, lactose-free milk and Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Pasta:

ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east at Forest Avenue, Paramus. 

For a large variety of Asian greens, fresh fruit, fresh whole fish for as little as $1.99 a pound and prepared Korean food:

H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike, Little Ferry; go for the low prices and ignore the shabby entrance and drab interior of this large supermarket.

For crispbread; frozen meatballs, including a vegetarian version; and other food from Scandinavia:

Swedish Food Market at IKEA, 100 IKEA Drive, Paramus. 

For inexpensive red wine:

Total Wine & More, 135 Kinderkamack Road, River Edge.

Moroccan-inspired fresh wild sockeye salmon is delicious hot or cold

DINNER FOR FOUR: A platter of grilled fresh wild sockeye salmon accented with Moroccan-flavored organic diced tomatoes and fresh herbs. At $9.99 a pound, a 1.77-pound fillet from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro provided six serving pieces, enough for four people with leftovers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I combined a fillet of fresh wild sockeye salmon from Costco Wholesale, a can of diced organic tomatoes and spices from a Moroccan apricot stew to produce another great dinner.

I emptied a can of organic diced tomatoes from Costco into a pan, added a few ounces of red wine and spices from a recipe I found in the newspaper -- a tablespoon each of minced garlic and curry powder; plus teaspoons of ground cumin, ground cinnamon and ground coriander; and black pepper to taste.

While that was reducing over a medium flame, I added a little sea salt and fresh lime juice to six serving pieces of wild salmon and transferred them to a preheated stove-top grill I had sprayed with oil.

The fish spent 4 minutes skin-side down before I flipped them over for another 3 minutes. Then, I removed them to a platter and added the hot stewed tomatoes and fresh chopped basil and mint from my garden.  

SEVEN MINUTES: I preheated the grill straddling two burners of my stove over medium-high heat, then turned the burners down to medium before adding the fish.

SALMON AND QUINOA: I ate the salmon with leftover organic quinoa I had prepared the night before. I finished with a small salad of organic spring mix.

SALMON AND SALAD: The next night, I had a piece of the wild salmon cold over a salad of organic spring mix and grape tomatoes from my garden, dressed in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Wild sockeye salmon with organic diced tomatoes, garlic, fresh herbs

Fresh wild Copper River Sockeye Salmon from Alaska was $14.99 a pound at the Costco Wholesale in Teterboro on Thursday or $2 less per pound than the week before.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A rich reduction of organic diced tomatoes, sliced garlic and red wine is delicious over grilled wild sockeye salmon fillets.

You'll need a 10-inch non-stick pan to thicken the tomato mixture and a stove-top grill for the skin-on fillets, which cook through in about 7 minutes over a medium-high flame -- less if you like them on the rare side.

A 1.65-pound fillet from Costco Wholesale yielded six serving portions -- plenty of heart-healthy fish to serve four ($24.73).

First, I sauteed thinly sliced garlic in olive oil until it was fragrant, then added a 14.5-ounce can of Kirkland Signature Organic Diced Tomatoes, a couple of ounces of red wine, the juice from one lime and seasonings, including red-pepper flakes and ground black pepper.

I brought that to a boil in a partially covered pan until the tomato juices and wine mostly evaporated, then grilled the salmon.

Once the fish was transferred to a platter, I added the garlicky tomato mixture and chopped herbs from my garden (mint, rosemary and basil).

If you have Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto in the refrigerator, a half teaspoon or more on top of the tomatoes would be a perfect accent.

Salmon, organic diced tomatoes, peeled garlic, pesto and seasonings are available from Costco Wholesale.

A 3-pound bag of peeled Christopher Ranch California Garlic was $7.39 at the Teterboro Costco.

My stove-top grill straddles two burners and easily accommodates six to nine pieces of salmon. I use spray oil and a medium-high flame and turn the fish in the last 2 minutes of cooking.

A platter of heart-healthy wild salmon, organic diced tomatoes and garlic.

Another use for Costco's peeled garlic is a 10-inch frittata with chopped garlic, black olives, grated cheese, fresh tomatoes and pesto, served here with sweet potatoes that were boiled with whole cloves, then mashed, using extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings, including cinnamon, curry powder, red-pepper flakes and black pepper.

Pour about 3 cups of liquid whites or whole eggs -- including plenty of chopped garlic, grated cheese and olives -- into a 10-inch pan over medium-high heat until the crust sets, then move the pan to the oven, where the top of the frittata will set and brown nicely under the broiler. Add Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto and chopped fresh herbs after you take the pan out of the oven.

You can prepare whole garlic cloves, organic diced tomatoes and organic brown rice in an electric cooker. The cloves will turn creamy.

On Friday, Baby Bok Choy was on sale for 88 cents a pound or half price at the H Mart, 25 Lafayette Ave., in Englewood. I sauteed nearly 2 pounds with olive and sesame oils, sake and seasonings.

For a dinner salad, I enjoy Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix with hothouse tomatoes and cucumbers -- dressed in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar -- over reheated organic brown rice.

Hackensack Costco reopens so you can run out for milk, bread, eggs

Five months after the Costco Wholesale in Hackensack ended a run of more than 20 years, the warehouse reopened today as a Costco Business Center catering to restaurants and other small businesses.

Four-gallon tubs of mayonnaise aimed at food businesses are among the unusually large sizes, even for Costco. The Business Center offers delivery and even bigger savings on purchases by the pallet in the warehouse or online. 



By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Costco's Hackensack warehouse reopened this morning as the company's first Business Center in New Jersey, and as the name suggests, the focus is on selling large quantities to restaurants and other small businesses.

Still, Costco members who want to avoid the mob scene at the bigger Teterboro warehouse will be able to pick up milk, bread, eggs, organic spring mix and other items in the sizes they are familiar with.

And the Hackensack Business Center retained the old food court, which will reopen later this week, offering fresh-baked 18-inch pizzas for $9.95 each, frozen yogurt and other items.

This morning, I picked up:

Three pounds of conventional bananas, $1.39; 1-pound of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, $4.79; a 2.5-pound jar of Kirkland Signature Unsalted Cashews, $14.89; and a dozen 16.9-ounce containers of Vita Coco Pure Coconut Water, $16.49 after instant savings of $5.50.

Instant savings also are being offered on spring water, sparkling apple juice and many other beverages through March 26.

The food court is expected to reopen later this week.

The new Business Center has enormous refrigerated rooms, above and below.

Restaurant equipment, including refrigerators, stoves and other items, are the first things you see when entering the warehouse. Electronics and clothing are no longer offered in Hackensack.

The Business Center at 80 S. River St., Hackensack, opens much earlier than a typical Costco warehouse, closes earlier and isn't open on Sundays.

At Lodi food warehouse, organic salads are half the price of non-organic

At the International Food Warehouse, 370 Essex St. in Lodi, bargains are getting harder to find. And missing price signs are common. I did find a liter bottle of extra-virgin olive oil -- a blend from Italy, Spain and Turkey -- for $5.99 that I will use with balsamic vinegar to dress my daily salad.

On Wednesday afternoon, I found 5-ounce containers of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix and Organic Half & Half  (Baby Spinach and Spring Mix) for 99 cents each, above. The triple-washed salads carried a short expiration date. That's a better buy than 1 pound of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix for $4.29 at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

Next to the Earthbound Farm salads, 5-ounce containers of non-organic Attitude Salads were $2 each, twice the price of organic. Go figure.

-- VICTOR E. SASSON

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.

From the store to the plate with only a few simple steps in between

ISLAND SALAD: Using cooked conch I brought home from H&Y, a Korean supermarket in Ridgefield, my wife produced a colorful and delicious salad, adding minced garlic; chopped onion, sweet and hot peppers, and lime juice. The result reminded me of the spicy Conch Salad I once had in the Bahamas, where they say "conk."

AFTER DINNER: A quick after-dinner salad made with triple-washed Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix, tomatoes from our garden, extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. You can turn this salad into a main course by adding smoked wild salmon and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese, both available at Costco Wholesale.

COMFORT FOOD: Mashed organic sweet potatoes from Trader Joe's, organic carrots from Costco Wholesale and Kabocha Squash from H Mart in Englewood were boiled with peeled garlic cloves for about an hour, below. Sweet potatoes, mashed or baked, are a great bread substitute that you can eat to your heart's content.

NO NEED FOR BUTTER: Drain, return to the pot and add extra-virgin olive oil and as many seasonings as you have on hand, including curry powder, cinnamon, black pepper, red-pepper flakes, a little sea salt and whatever else you like, then mash. I make enough to provide side dishes for several breakfasts and dinners or as a snack at midday.

GOOD BUY: At Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, 10-pound bags of conventional sweet potatoes cost about 79 cents a pound.

BAKED PLANTAINS: A baked sweet potato, with a little organic salsa, and baked -- not fried -- sweet plantains, all served alongside an egg-white omelet stuffed with smoked wild salmon and reduced-fat Swiss cheese. Most of the ingredients are from the Hackensack Costco.

BOTTLE-AND-CAN PASTA: Organic whole-wheat spirals in marinara sauce with drained and rinsed anchovies, sardines, red wine, extra-virgin olive oil and seasonings, including red-pepper flakes and ground garlic. Instead of grated cheese, I added panko bread crumbs as an accent. I used a 44-ounce jar of pasta sauce, one can of anchovies, three cans of sardines in tomato sauce and a 1-pound package of Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Fusilli from ShopRite ($1.25), enough for several meals.

-- VICTOR E. SASSON