No pasta sauce? You can still make a flavorful pot of organic spaghetti

This pot of organic whole-wheat spaghetti is bursting with flavor from extra-virgin olive oil, lots of chopped fresh garlic and a few other items.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Red wine, anchovies and capers are just three of the ways to boost the flavor of organic whole-wheat spaghetti when you don't have or don't want to use bottled pasta sauce.

Other essentials are lots of fresh garlic and extra-virgin olive oil.

I started the sauce by cooking several fistfuls of peeled garlic cloves, roughly chopped, in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a large oval black-and-white speckled pot.

When the garlic became fragrant, I added a can of organic diced tomatoes and several ounces of inexpensive red wine, and brought them to a boil.

Then, I added a can of anchovies and two or three tablespoons of capers, both drained and rinsed under the faucet to reduce their sodium content. 

I allowed the sauce to come to a boil again and reduce, then covered the pot and turned down the heat while I boiled the pasta in a separate pot without adding salt to the water.

I used a 1-pound package of Luigi Vitelli Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti ($1.25 at ShopRite in Paramus) that cooks al dente in 7 minutes.

Of course, any shape will do, including Whole Foods Market's Organic Whole Wheat Shells from Italy.

The shells catch the garlic, capers and other ingredients ($1.49 a pound).

For breakfast, leftovers with a simple egg-white omelet made with a little grated Pecorino Romano Cheese and Aleppo pepper.

Drain, mix, enjoy

Drain the pasta, add it to the oval pot and mix well, making sure to spoon garlic, capers, tomatoes and other ingredients you could use, such as chopped sweet peppers and onions, over the spaghetti.

You could garnish the spaghetti with chopped mint, oregano and other herbs, and then serve it with grated Pecorino Romano Cheese, red wine and a salad.

Peeled California garlic, capers in brine and anchovies in oil are available at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

For cooking, I use Don Simon Shiraz ($3.99 a bottle at Whole Foods Market in Paramus), and it's drinkable enough to serve with your meal.

After a nice helping of pasta and a couple glasses of wine, you can end your meal with a salad of red- and green-leaf lettuces, which we grew in our garden from plants purchased at H Mart, the Korean supermarket in Englewood. I dressed mine in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Chinese New Year food delivery, taking comfort in sweet potatoes

On Sunday night, as snow fell, we belatedly celebrated the Year of the Sheep, which began Feb. 19, with delivery from Lotus Cafe in Hackensack, including a special Chinese New Year Dinner of fresh fish and snow pea leaves.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Another snowstorm put a damper on our Sunday night plans to celebrate the Chinese New Year at Lotus Cafe in Hackensack.

Luckily, we live within the restaurant's delivery zone, and I picked up the phone and placed our order.

We ordered one Year of the Sheep Special (hold the lamb), a four-course meal for $29.95, and supplemented that with three other dishes.

A second helping of Lotus Cafe fish and vegetables, without brown rice, included snow pea leaves, Chinese broccoli and crunchy snow peas and water chestnuts.

Our Chinese New Year Special, a fixed-priced four-course meal, included a Lobster Spring Roll and Chinese mustard.

Fish, vegetables, brown rice

For the Chinese New Year Special, I chose Hot and Sour Seafood Soup and Flounder with Snow Pea Leaves.

Other entree choices were filet mignon, duck either of two ways or jumbo shrimp.

For an appetizer, we got a Lobster Spring Roll and Grilled Chicken Skewers. Dessert was ice cream.

We also ordered Beef with Mustard Greens and Chili Pepper ($14.95), Prawns with crunchy Snow Peas ($16.95) and Chinese Broccoli with fresh garlic ($9.95).

All of the food was delicious, and I washed it down with the bottle of Yuengling Original Black & Tan beer I was planning to take to the Hackensack Avenue BYO.

And we have leftovers for breakfast and dinner today.

Lotus Cafe, 450 Hackensack Ave., Hackensack, in the Home Depot Shopping Center; 201-488-7070. BYO.

I boiled three large sweet potatoes from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack (a 6.5-pound bag was $5.79), and fistfuls of peeled Christopher Ranch Monviso Garlic (a 3-pound bag was $6.39) to mash with extra-virgin olive oil and a multitude of seasoning, including sea salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, red-pepper flakes and curry powder.

Sweet potatoes are less starchy

Sweet potatoes, baked or mashed, are a cornerstone of the no-bread, no pizza, no meat diet I've been following for five years.

They're less starchy than yams or conventional potatoes, and widely available at ShopRite, Trader Joe's and Costco Wholesale.

The first two offer both conventional and organic sweet potatoes, and Trader Joe's has the best deals.

I often eat sweet potatoes for breakfast to supplement prepared food from Korean supermarkets and homemade dishes.

A baked sweet potato accented with Mexican-style salsa is a filling side dish at breakfast. The whole egg omelet is stuffed with reduced-fat Swiss cheese and grated Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese from Italy.

Another bread substitute is a steaming portion of organic whole-wheat linguine dressed in bottled Victoria Marinara with skinless-and-boneless sardines, part of a satisfying homemade dinner of pasta, salad and red wine.

Earthbound Organic Spring Mix and Sunset-brand Romana Tomatoes dressed in organic extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Comfort food from the Jamaican kitchen includes fried sweet plantains and boiled green banana as foils for the hot peppers in a breakfast of ackee (a bland fruit) and salted Alaskan pollock.

Plating leftovers from the Korean, Jamaican, Chinese and American kitchens for breakfast (clockwise from the top), stewed tofu from H Mart in Little Ferry, homemade ackee and salt fish; crunchy snow peas and water chestnuts from Lotus Cafe; and sweet potatoes and garlic mashed with extra-virgin olive oil. Other breakfasts have included Korean mung-bean pancakes and batter-dipped squid, both from H&Y Marketplace in Ridgefield.

Bad weather can mean pleasant shopping at Costco Wholesale

Some Costco Wholesale members expend so much energy pushing carts overflowing with food and other merchandise they don't bother returning unwanted items to where they found them, such as this gallon of milk left opposite the registers in Hackensack. In other words, they're just lazy.

Media warnings of icy roads apparently kept many shoppers away from the Hackensack warehouse store on Tuesday afternoon.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When you're a member of Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, you hope for bad weather to thin the bargain-hunting crowd inside the cavernous warehouse store.

On Tuesday afternoon, I walked casually through the aisles looking for items on my list, and didn't have to fight others for free food samples.

I liked one of them enough -- prepared Organic Quinoa &Kale with seasonings, rosemary, lime juice and extra-virgin olive oil -- to purchase it.

In the freezer, I found a package containing four 10-ounce pouches -- a total of 2.5 pounds -- for $9.99.

I also purchased a 6.5-pound net bag of large sweet potatoes for $5.79, three half-gallons of low-fat Organic Milk for $10.99 and six 32-ounce cartons of Organic Chicken Broth for $11.59 -- not four liters, as I wrote earlier.

Also, 3 pounds of raw, salt-free U.S. almonds for roasting at home were $15.99 and a wedge of aged Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese from Italy was $10.59 a pound.

Honeycrisp Apples from Washington State were $13.99 for 5.5 pounds, compared to $10.99 in early December and less for the same apples from New York State.

Organic Quinoa & Kale is made with the elusive red quinoa.

I passed on Olive Garden Italian Dressing after I saw that the second ingredient listed is high-fructose corn syrup. Yuck.

In the Hackensack store's Kosher aisle, I found Mon Cuisine Turkey Breasts stuffed with quinoa, pine nuts and carrots in mushroom gravy. The poultry is naturally raised and free of antibiotics. 

Some of the kosher offerings in Hackensack.

Cello-brand Grated Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese imported from Italy, is wonderful sprinkled over pasta, soup or salads, and it adds a distinctive flavor to egg-white omelets. The cheese also is available in wedges, but the Hackensack store has stopped carrying wedges of Grana Padano, a cow's milk cheese from Italy.

An omelet with grated Pecorino Romano and Aleppo pepper made with Kirkland Signature 100% Egg Whites from Costco. I served it with a homemade combination of organic quinoa and organic brown rice, and Sunbelt Organic Fresh Salsa, which I picked up last week when I shopped at Costco for a Super Bowl Party.

Grated Pecorino Romano over two organic brown eggs from Costco.

Five 3.75-ounce cans of Season-brand Skinless and Boneless Sardines were $5.99 at Costco on Tuesday with an instant $2.50 rebate, available through Feb. 22. At home, I prepared 1 pound of organic 100% whole wheat linguine in Victoria Vodka Sauce, one of the few made without heavy cream. To the 40 ounces of sauce, I added red wine, drained anchovies, three cans of sardines, extra-virgin olive oil, red-pepper flakes and other seasonings.

An oval pan accommodates the full length of the linguine and allows me to use less water. I never add salt to the water; there is plenty of sodium in the sauce, sardines and so forth. The linguine was cooked al dente in 7 minutes.

Sweet-potato frittata, fresh wild coho salmon fillet with lime and pesto

Slices of boiled organic sweet potato and a fresh tomato, as well as chunks of Pecorino Romano sheep's milk cheese, set this 10-inch frittata apart.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A thick potato omelet from Spain -- tortilla espanola  -- was my inspiration for adding sliced sweet potatoes to my weekend frittata. 

First, I boiled the organic sweet-potato slices to soften them.

I used a mixture of four whole organic eggs, 8 ounces of liquid egg whites, a little low-fat milk and grated Pecorino Romano cheese, and poured all of it into a hot, non-stick, 10-inch pan with olive oil.

As the crust set over a medium-high flame, I layered sweet-potato and fresh tomato slices into the egg mixture, and added small chunks of Pecorino Romano.

I finished the frittata under the broiler, took it out of the oven and added Aleppo pepper and Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto.

The sweet potatoes were from Trader Joe's, and most of the other ingredients came from Costco Wholesale.

Wild-caught coho salmon fillet accented with Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto, both from Costco Wholesale.

Easy wild salmon

My wife brought home a 2-pound fillet of wild Alaskan coho salmon from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack  ($10.99 a pound).

I cut the skin-on fillet into six pieces, put them on parchment paper in a large pan, squeezed on fresh lime juice and added a couple of pinches of Aleppo pepper.

You can also use paprika or another mildy spicy red pepper or even red-pepper flakes in moderation.

The fish went into a preheated, 375-degree oven.

I removed one of the pieces after 8 minutes (rare) and the rest after 12-13 minutes (cooked through).

I spooned on Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto after I took the salmon out of the oven.

I served the salmon with Lundberg Wild Blend Rice prepared in an electric cooker, and finished the meal with a salad.

Simple and delicious.


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A late-summer bounty of tomatoes and black figs

Black figs and tomatoes from our garden with Costco Wholesale's Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix and imported, aged Pecorino Romano sheep's milk cheese.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

We've managed to rescue a fair number of tomatoes and black figs from the critters that inhabit our garden.

We're having better luck with them than with the peaches from a tree that is very popular with squirrels, and they don't even wait until the fruit grows.

The tomatoes are great in salads and frittatas or paired with a good cheese and dressed simply in extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

We cut back the black fig tree every fall, but it comes back stronger every year.

Birds get to many -- but not all -- of the figs before we do.

Sweet and savory.

Transforming the daily salad with organic baby spinach.

I love figs in any form -- dried from Costco Wholesale, in Spanish fig cakes with nuts from Fairway Market and Whole Foods Market, both in Paramus; and in a fig preserve with anise from Fattal's Bakery in Paterson.

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How to eat pasta without tomato sauce

Imported 100% whole-wheat farfalle in a sauce made with organic diced tomatoes, but no tomato sauce, above. The next morning, the whole-wheat pasta was the perfect foil for two organic brown eggs, below.

 

Oil and garlic, and a fragrant basil pesto are two ways to eat pasta without tomato sauce.

But don't stop there.

I emptied a can of organic diced tomatoes with its  juices into a large, non-stick pan; added two cans of drained sardines, rinsing them to reduce sodium; and a couple of ounces of salted cod fish that had been boiled twice to remove salt and broken into small pieces.

I followed with 3 or 4 ounces of extra-virgin olive oil from Cyprus, a few ounces of French red wine, lots of chopped fresh garlic and some red-pepper flakes, and I broke up the sardines with a spatula before covering the pan and turning on the heat to bring everything to a low boil.

Meanwhile, I boiled 1 pound of imported whole-wheat farfalle, drained the pasta and mixed it well with the sauce.

When I served the pasta, I made sure to sprinkle on grated sheep's milk Pecorino Romano cheese from Italy. Next time, I'll add pine nuts to the sauce.

I usually make 1 pound of pasta to provide leftovers for breakfast and dinner the next day.
 

Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto from Costco Wholesale has lots of uses beyond dressing pasta. It adds a spring-like zing to bland tofu in a takeout dinner salad, above, and to wild-caught Icelandic haddock fillets right out of the oven, below.

 

Another sauce for pasta -- cacio e pepe -- uses lots of grated cheese and ground black pepper, and a cup or more of reserved pasta water.

After the pasta is boiled and drained, add it to a non-stick pan and drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil to prevent sticking.

Then, the hot pasta water goes in and the heat goes on, followed by lots of grated Pecorino Romano cheese and ground black pepper to taste. 

Add more hot pasta water, if necessary. Mix well. By the way, don't salt the water beforehand, and use just enough to cover the pasta.

Again, I make this with 1 pound of organic whole-wheat spaghetti from Trader Joe's to provide plenty of leftovers.  

I use organic diced tomatoes, Pecorino Romano cheese, fresh garlic, ground black pepper, red-pepper flakes, refrigerated pesto and wild-caught Icelandic haddock from Costco Wholesale.
   

The Garofalo whole-wheat Farfalle or Bow Ties I used in the first recipe had a cooking time of 15 minutes, one of the longest I have ever seen. I used Costco's Basil Pesto to dress artisanal egg noddles from Italy that I found at my warehouse store in Hackensack only once, below.

   

Minimize the salt, maximize the flavor

A less-salty version of pasta sauce with sardines eliminates anchovies.

But I added grated cheese, which has sodium, to my portion of rigatoni.

The biggest source of sodium in my hearty red pasta sauce with sardines is a 2-ounce can of anchovies -- so they were the first to go.

I've been adding anchovies to bottled pasta sauce for years to add a robustness without a fishy taste. The tiny fish completely dissolve in the bubbling sauce.

Instead of 32 ounces or 40 ounces of bottled sauce, I downsized to a 24-ounce jar of Classico Tomato and Basil, and that cut the amount of sodium further.

I poured the sauce over leeks I had sauteed in a large, non-stick pan with a glass cover; added red-pepper flakes and dried Italian herbs, and about 6 ounces of sodium-free extra-virgin olive oil.

I opened a can of Moroccan sardines with oil, drained them in a plastic colander and actually rinsed them under cold water to get rid of more salt.

I added them to the sauce and chopped them with a wooden spatula.

There is no need to salt the water or add more than enough to cover the pasta.

I cooked Colavita Whole Wheat Rigatoni ($1.49 for 16 ounces at Jerry's in Englewood) until a minute or two before it was al dente, drained it and finished cooking it in the sauce.

My wife gave me the thumbs up when she tried it, but I thought it could use a little more salt and added grated Pecorino Romano sheep's milk cheese to my portion.

Delicious. I drank a glass of Italian red wine to celebrate.

Whole Wheat Rigatoni with Sardines and Leeks.

Related article

• How I reduced salt in a favorite dish

How I reduced salt in a favorite dish

Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Spaghetti with sardines and anchovies.

You'd expect a dish with two small but mighty ocean fish to be salty, but pasta with canned sardines and anchovies really piles it on.

There is sodium in nearly every ingredient, including the imported Colavita whole-wheat pasta I sometimes use.

The first way to cut salt in the recipe is to stop salting the water used for boiling the pasta.

In the past, I'd pump up the flavor by dumping  sardines and anchovies and all their oil into the sauce, but now I drain the cans and add extra-virgin olive oil, which has no sodium.

A 2-ounce can of anchovies has 860 milligrams of sodium or 36% of the recommended daily intake of 2,400 milligrams. 

The anchovies dissolve completely, but give the sauce a hearty, non-fishy flavor.

A 4-ounce-plus can of the Moroccan sardines I use has 603 milligrams of sodium.

But the only way to avoid more sodium in the sauce is to make it yourself.

Today, I looked at the labels of a dozen bottled pasta sauces at the Hackensack ShopRite, and typically saw more than 300, 400 or even 500 milligrams of sodium listed for a serving size of one-half cup.

The nutritional label of Mario Batali Tomato Basil sauce.

I found the lowest salt content in Chef Mario Batali's Tomato Basil pasta sauce -- only 180 mg per half cup -- but other Mario Batali sauces have a lot more sodium.

When I serve pasta with sardines and anchovies, I like to add grated Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese, so that's another source of sodium.

Not using salt in the pasta water and draining the cans of fish are good first steps, but I think I have to go further.

I could cut the amount of sardines -- to two cans from three or four per pound of pasta -- as well as use less bottled sauce and more extra-virgin olive oil.

I could also stop adding anchovies, but the sauce wouldn't be as robust. I can skip the grated cheese.

And I can console myself about the high sodium content of the dish by always drinking a glass or two of red wine with it.

At least that would be good for my heart.

'Honey, I forgot the milk'

Image via Wikipedia
The imported Pecorino Romano sheep's milk cheese sold at Costco has more sodium than the aged Manchego from Spain, but costs less.

My wife brought home a lot of food from Costco Wholesale in Hackensack on Monday, but forgot organic milk and egg whites.


When I returned on Tuesday for the milk and eggs, I  picked up seven other items, and ended up spending nearly $84.


I'm the only one in the family who doesn't eat meat, so I bought fish: fresh, wild-caught haddock fillets from Iceland for dinner tonight and salted Pacific cod, both $7.99 a pound.


A 2-pound package of strawberries from Mexico were $4.99, and 3 pounds of bananas were the usual $1.39. A dozen 6-ounce cups of Stonyfield Organic Low-Fat Yogurt with Fruit on the Bottom were $7.89.


I wanted a sheep's milk cheese to enjoy with fruit and had two choices, Villacenteno Manchego, an aged cheese from Spain, at $8.29 a pound; and aged Kirkland Signature Pecorino Romano from Italy at around $5.50 a pound (I don't remember the exact price).


I looked at the Nutrition Facts labels and chose the Spanish cheese, which has less sodium than the Pecorino Romano, but different serving sizes made figuring that out a challenge.


The  Manchego went perfectly with slices from a wedge of Spanish fig cake with nuts I picked up at Fairway Market in Paramus the other day.


At Costco, I also picked up another 5-pound box of Sunset Beefsteak Tomatoes for $6.99 (10 tomatoes). They are greenhouse grown and vine ripened.


I prefer the superior taste of Sunset's Campari Tomatoes, but refuse to pay $5.49 for a 2-pound package.


Three half-gallons of Kirkland Signature Organic 1% Milk were $8.99, and the price has held steady for many months. Six 16-ounce containers of Kirkland Signature Real Eggs were $9.59.