Baby aspirin, egg whites, organic pasta, takeout, Can Can sale, more

If you take a baby aspirin every day, as I do, you'll be struck by the dramatic price difference at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro between 400 Bayer tablets for $12.49, above, and the 730 Kirkland Signature tablets for $4.49 that I bought last week, below.

Costco's Kirkland Signature Low Dose Aspirin tablets are supplied by LNK International. The Hauppauge, N.Y., company makes solid- and liquid-dose over-the-counter pharmaceutical products for retailers nationwide, according to the January 2017 issue of The Costco Connection magazine.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Although not everyone agrees on the health benefits of taking a baby aspirin every day, Costco Wholesale members are unanimously in favor of how much they save over a national brand.

You get nearly twice as many coated, low-dose aspirin tablets -- and save $8 -- when you buy Costco's Kirkland Signature brand instead of Bayer, a German pharmaceutical giant.

This is another dramatic example of how Costco puts added value in most of the products sold under the house label.

Everything from Kirkland Signature's 81-milligram aspirin tablets to such Kirkland Signature wines as California Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec from Argentina, both available at the Costco Wholesale in Wayne. 

On a visit to the Wayne Costco in December, I picked up eight bottles of wine, including a non-Kirkland Signature boxed set of four Grands Vins de Bordeaux from France for $29.99 or about $7.50 a bottle.

The one bottle of Bordeaux I tried so far was delicious, but I was disappointed to learn I could have found the same bottles elsewhere for about the same price. 

Kirkland Signature Organic Quinoa, on the other hand, appeared on Costco shelves last year in a larger package and at a lower price than the national brand it replaced.

A hearty breakfast includes an egg-white omelet stuffed with wild Alaskan smoked sockeye salmon and reduced-fat Swiss cheese, served over organic quinoa prepared with organic diced tomatoes and California garlic cloves -- all from Costco. Kirkland Signature Cage-Free Egg Whites are $8.99 for six 16-ounce cartons or about $1.50 each, below.

365 Every Day Value Organic Whole Wheat Shells from Italy dressed in a homemade, heart-healthy ragu of Victoria-brand Vodka Sauce, sardines and anchovies.

At Whole Foods Market, 1-pound boxes or packages of organic whole wheat shells and other shapes are $1.49 each, a better buy than non-organic brands sold in smaller packages. They also can't match the nutty taste of organic whole wheat pasta, which is also available at ShopRite supermarkets and Trader Joe's. Cooking time for the pasta is about 9 minutes, not the 14-15 minutes listed on the package.

I reserved a few ounces of sauce to use for poaching eggs. Victoria is one of the few brands offering a Vodka Sauce free of artery clogging heavy cream. All the ingredients are listed on the front label. I usually add a few ounces of red wine, extra-virgin olive oil, some red-pepper flakes and dried Italian herbs to the pan as the sauce is being heated.

Before adding them to the sauce, I rinse and drain the anchovies to reduce the sodium content of the dish, and mince the sardines (3 cans for 1 pound of pasta) with a fork before they go into the pot. Fattal's at 975-77 Main St. in Paterson sells Al Shark-brand sardines for 99 cents a can.

On Friday afternoon, Jerry's Gourmet & More at 410 S. Dean St. in Englewood ran out of complete restaurant-quality dinners to go, so I picked up two containers of Cheese Lovers' Tortelloni, made with five cheeses, for my wife and son.

As I browsed at Jerry's, I enjoyed several free samples of cheese and bread, including a chewy olive loaf, top.

Can Can Sale at ShopRite

On Thursday, I shopped the first week of the 2017 Can Can Sale at ShopRite in Paramus.

I made a few purchases, including five 12-can packages of Adirondack Seltzer for $10, a savings of $8.95 with a store card, according to my receipt.

The Can Can Sale doesn't offer the wide range of deep discounts it once did, and you can find great buys at ShopRite at other times.

For examples, I picked up several bottles of ShopRite Sparkling Cider from Spain (100% juice) for $1.67 each on Dec. 29.

Golden Pineapples were $1.97 each.

Spice-coated Cod & Vegetable Medley, Korean-style quinoa and more

Fresh wild-caught Icelandic cod -- coated in a homemade Super Spice Mixture -- fresh spinach, cherry tomatoes and pitted olives is ready to eat after about 15 minutes in a preheated 400-degree oven, below. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Continuing thanks to The Fish Dock in Closter for supplying the key to preparing a healthy and delicious dinner in under 30 minutes.

On my first visit to the Icelandic fish store, I purchased a pound of ready-to-cook Fish & Vegetable Medley, popped the store-supplied pan into the oven and sat down to dinner in about 15 minutes.

Since then, I've been assembling my own medleys, using fresh, wild-caught Icelandic cod and haddock from Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

Last week, my wife brought home more than 2 pounds of fresh, long-line caught, skinless-and-boneless cod fillets ($7.99 a pound).

I assembled a medley with fresh spinach, cherry tomatoes and black olives I had on hand, plus extra-virgin olive oil and grated cheese.

First, I cut up the cod into serving pieces, and coated them in a mixture from a large container I keep in the refrigerator that combines every spice I have in the house, including curry powder, no-salt seasoning, red-pepper flakes and garlic powder.

The spinach goes into a large foil-lined pan first, then a generous drizzle of olive oil and a little sea salt, then the tomatoes and olives, then the spice-coated cod, then the grated cheese.

The cod was thicker than in the past so I kept the pan in a preheated 400-degree oven for about 16 minutes to 18 minutes.

Korean-style shredded vegetables, available at H Mart, turn organic quinoa into a filling meatless meal. Quinoa, a great bread substitute, has fewer carbs than rice or pasta.

I purchased the Bibimbap Vegetables last Friday at H Mart, 25 Lafayette Ave. in Englewood, and added them to quinoa I had prepared in a rice cooker with organic black beans, organic diced tomatoes and peeled garlic cloves.

Bibimpap is true Korean comfort food -- steamed rice, shredded vegetables, ground beef (or you can ask for it without meat) and a raw or cooked egg prepared in a stone bowl, with a spicy red-pepper paste called gochujang on the side. You mix the ingredients with a spoon, add gochujang and dig in.

Delverde Tagliatelle with Spinach cooks up al dente in about 5 minutes. Here, I dressed the pasta in Trader Joe's Puttanesca Sauce, one of the few bottled sauces with anchovies; three cans of sardines, mashed with a fork; fresh spinach, red wine and extra-virgin olive oil. 

Organic Whole Wheat Shells from Whole Foods Market in Paramus ($1.49) dressed with Victoria Marinara and three cans of sardines, mashed with a fork.

Fresh whole wild-caught red snappers were $6.99 a pound last Sunday at the H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, below. Here, a whole fish stuffed with callaloo, a leafy green,  took about 30 minutes to cook when wrapped in foil.

After an absence of several weeks, free seafood samples returned to the Little Ferry H Mart. Two of the best are fish eggs over broiled New Zealand mussels, and broiled eel.

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.

Editors from Bon Appetit can't teach you anything about cooking eggs

Chopped fresh herbs and Aleppo pepper are two way to elevate an egg-white omelet, which you can stuff with grated cheese, smoked wild salmon, Mexican-style salsa, pesto or a dried thyme mixture called za'atar -- or all of them at once.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I didn't learn anything from a Leonard Lopate Show podcast on cooking eggs with two editors from Bon Appetit magazine.

The WNYC-FM segment sounded like it was aimed at people who have never prepared their own breakfast, and still scramble eggs.

Why ruin organic brown eggs -- like the ones I buy at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro (2 dozen for $6.99) --by scrambling them?

In the Aug. 5 segment, the magazine editors, Christina Chaey and Rick Martinez, didn't even mention egg-white omelets or frittatas. 

I prepare eggs almost every morning, and often pair them with such bread substitutes as organic quinoa or organic whole-wheat pasta.

A big breakfast usually allows me to skip lunch or get by on a snack bar, and helps me to control my weight.

Forget butter

I use olive oil, the only fat that's both good for your heart and non-GMO, and I favor a blend of pure and extra-virgin olive oils from Costco.

We use that same blend for frying whole fish and antibiotic-free chicken.

I use non-stick pans, and medium heat for both omelets and eggs sunny side up. I've found that even with a non-stick pan, eggs will stick at higher heat.

For a stuffed omelet, I pour a little olive oil and then liquid egg whites to cover the bottom of a 10-inch pan, and when the eggs turn white and set, add smoked salmon, pesto, za'atar or other ingredients.

I then use a thin spatula to fold the omelet in half, and accent it with fresh herbs or ground red pepper.

See: How to make a sweet-potato frittata

I usually enjoy a pair of organic brown eggs, sunny side up, once a week and prepare egg-white omelets the rest of the time. Here, I accented the eggs with chopped fresh basil and mint from my garden, and served them over leftover organic quinoa with organic tomatoes and beans, and whole garlic cloves prepared in an electric cooker.

Store-bought Korean-style stewed tofu, top, and homemade shredded cabbage are just two of the side dishes you can serve with a stuffed egg-white omelet.

A stuffed-egg white omelet with sauteed fresh spinach and a store-bought sushi roll with cooked shrimp.

Two organic eggs served over organic whole-wheat pasta in a red sauce with canned sardines and anchovies -- left over from our dinner the night before.

When my iPhone freezes, I land a great deal on a new one at Costco

Atlantic cod is the fish that fed the world for centuries until limits were placed on its catch. Costco Wholesale in Teterboro offers fillets from a sustainable fishery in Iceland, where the cod are long-line caught. The fish turns snowy white and flakes beautifully when poached in roasted green salsa, above.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I planned to shop for food at Trader Joe's and Costco Wholesale on Tuesday, but my iPhone started giving me trouble right away.

When I tried to use the phone's camera at the Paramus Trader Joe's on Route 17, the screen was black.

I knew I was eligible for an upgrade in late January, so I drove to the Verizon store in the southbound lanes.

But before going inside, I called the wireless kiosk at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

I learned I could get a new, bigger iPhone, a free portable battery with flashlight, and a $100 cash card.

I then went inside the Verizon store, where the salesman said he couldn't match the offer.

At Costco, I paid the tax, $59.50, and agreed to pay $10 a month for two years for an iPhone 6s Plus with a lot more memory than my old iPhone 5s.

I got to the Teterboro Costco around 2:30 in the afternoon, and had my choice of parking spots near or far away from the entrance (Teterboro Landing shopping center off of Route 46).

Inside the store, only one other customer was ahead of me at the wireless kiosk.

After my phone was activated, I did my planned food shopping.

Icelandic cod

Costco sells one of my favorites, fresh wild-caught Atlantic Cod from Iceland for $7.99 a pound.

At home, in a large covered pan, I heated up 365 Everyday Value Roasted Salsa Verde from Whole Foods Market, adding fresh juice from one lime.

I cut up the skinless and boneless fillet into serving pieces, and seasoned them with sea salt and crushed Aleppo pepper.

When the salsa began to boil, I put the pieces in the pan in a single layer and covered them. 

Depending on the thickness, the pieces were ready in 5 minutes to 7 minutes, and continued cooking in the covered pan when I turned off the fire.

I ate my first portion over leftover organic quinoa with organic diced tomatoes, both from Costco; organic chickpeas and whole garlic cloves.

I also had a salad of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix ($4.29 a pound at Costco), dressed with Kirkland Signature Organic Extra-Virgin Olive Oil and balsamic vinegar.

Fresh Atlantic Cod poached in Roasted Salsa Verde over organic quinoa with organic chickpeas, organic diced tomatoes and whole garlic cloves.

Free-range organic eggs

At the Teterboro Costco, you can find free-range brown eggs, but the only organic ones are sold under the Kirkland Signature house label (two dozen for $6.99).

I've looked for large brown organic eggs at that price ($3.50 a dozen) in ShopRite and H Mart without success. 

I also picked up a 2-liter container of Kirkland Signature Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil for $13.29 with a $1.50 instant coupon or about $6.65 a liter.

Two organic eggs from Costco Wholesale with organic quinoa and sauteed spinach.

Oatmeal with blueberries and organic bananas from Costco Wholesale. Blueberries from Chile were $4.99 for 18 ounces and 3 pounds of organic bananas were $1.99.

Trader Joe's 100% juices

Earlier at Trader Joe's on Route 17 north in Paramus, I picked up a 3-pound bag of Organic Sweet Potatoes for $4.49 or about $1.50 a pound.

A 5-pound bag of the same Organic Sweet Potatoes was available during the holidays for about $1 a pound, but that has been discontinued.

I also picked up 64-ounce bottles of several 100% juice blends with no added sugar:

Trader Joe's Green Plant, Low Sodium Garden Patch, Heart of Darkness Mango Passionfruit and Carrot Tropical Blend.

Each was $3.49 or $3.99.

A 32-ounce container of Trader Joe's 3-in-1 Shampoo, Conditioner and Body Wash was $7.99.

Costco Visa with 'generous rebate package' will replace Amex in 2016

How big is the new Costco Wholesale in Teterboro? Too big, in the opinion of many shoppers, including me, who couldn't find items on their list, and tramped back and forth looking for them and asking others for directions. In the distance, you can barely see the food court photos, which are just beyond the checkout lanes.

Editor's note: The bigger Costco Wholesale warehouse in Teterboro signed up more than 1,000 new members since a preview party on Oct. 13. Meanwhile, Costco announced the end of its relationship with American Express by next April.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Costco Wholesale has begun preparing members for the transition to a Visa credit card from longtime partner American Express.

In a letter to members, Costco said the warehouse giant "will stop accepting American Express credit cards, including the co-branded Costco American Express Cards," sometime after March 31, 2016.

"As part of our continuing commitment to provide members with the best value possible, we have partnered with Citi and Visa to develop new credit cards ... that will provide you with the opportunity to earn generous rewards ....," the company said.

Costco American Express Card holders won't have to apply for new cards or take any other immediate action.

Details of the new Costco Visa Card's "very generous rebate package" will be provided in early 2016.

Now, the Costco American Express Cards give members cash rebates on their purchases in the warehouse store, as well as at outside gas stations, restaurants and other businesses.

Many members easily recoup their membership fee of $55 or $110, and hundreds of dollars more.

Today, I couldn't find Kirkland Signature Himalayan Pink Salt, said to be the purest salt on earth. Instead, Costco is offering a grinder of Kirkland Signature Mediterranean Sea Salt ($3.49), left, or Pure Sea Salt from Brazil ($2.79), but the latter doesn't provide iodide.

Another Kirkland Signature item that was missing was 2% Lactose Free Milk in three 64-ounce cartons. Instead, I had to buy a 96-ounce container of 2% Lactaid Lactose Free Milk for a pricey $4.99, compared to three half-gallons of Costco's product for $7.99.

Shopping in Teterboro

On my second visit to the bigger Teterboro Costco, which opened on Oct. 14, I had a longer list than I did last Friday, and had trouble finding several items.

But just inside the door today, I was delighted to see an Aroma-brand 10-cup combination electric rice cooker, slow cooker and food steamer, just what I needed to replace my 15-year-old Panasonic cooker with a chipped inner pot.

The cooker, with a "quick rice" setting for white rice in 10 minutes, was only $29.99.

I picked up my usual 1-pound package of Earthbound Farm Organic Spring Mix for $4.59, as well as three heads of Butter Lettuce hydroponically greenhouse grown in Quebec, Canada, for $4.79.

A 4-pound bag of Nature's Intent Organic Quinoa is $14.79, and Kirkland Signature Organic Diced Tomatoes are $6.49 (eight 14.5-ounce cans).

The Poland Springs water pack is bigger than before, with 40 16.9-ounce bottles for $4.99 or about 12.5 cents each. 

And the price of six wonderful frozen Maryland-style jumbo lump crab cakes from Phillips Seafood Restaurants dropped to $15.99 from $18.99.

Another shopper walked away in a huff when I told her about Fresh Atlantic Salmon from Norway, where the farmed fish are raised without harmful antibiotics, for $8.99 a pound, above and below, or $2 more a pound than the enormous hunk of fresh farmed salmon from Chile she had put in her cart. Chilean fish farmers are said to use a tremendous amount of antibiotics to prevent disease and promote growth.

I wanted to buy wild-caught whole red snapper from Nicaragua for $6.59 a pound, but wasn't sure the fish were scaled.

Buying Legal Sea Foods Alaskan King Crab & Sweet Corn Chowder at Costco is a lot cheaper than having lunch at the upscale chain restaurant in Paramus.

Tonight, I used my remaining Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto with a use by or freeze date of Oct. 25 to dress a full pound of Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Linguine ($1.25 from ShopRite), and added Chinese pignoli nuts. I had less than half of the 22-ounce jar left, and added a little hot pasta water as I mixed the rich sauce into the linguine.

Costco's pesto, which uses basil from Italy, extra-virgin olive oil and imported cheese, also complements the fresh tomato slices in a frittata, served here with organic quinoa, black beans and organic diced tomatoes prepared in a rice cooker.

I started the egg mixture, which included minced garlic, and chopped sweet peppers and onions, on top of the stove, above, and finished it under the broiler. The pesto is added when the pan comes out of the oven.

Fresh wild king salmon, sweet blueberries, butter-like spreads and more

Grilled fresh wild king salmon is delicious right out of the refrigerator, above, perched on peppery arugula dressed with extra-virgin olive and balsamic vinegar, or hot right off of a stove-top grill, below.

Fresh king salmon was $16.99 a pound at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack or $2 more a pound than the wild Alaskan sockeye salmon we purchased a week earlier.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Whether king, sockeye or coho, fresh wild salmon is one of the big draws these days at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

On Tuesday, my wife found fresh king salmon for $16.99 a pound instead of Copper River sockeye, which she bought for $14.99 a pound on June 2.

That may seem pricey, but Costco still has the lowest prices on fresh wild salmon when compared to Whole Foods Market, New York-based Fairway Market and other retailers.

King are the largest salmon, and the fillets can be as thick as 2 inches. 

They're delicious, of course, but don't have the deep red-orange color of sockeye or the distinctive taste of the smaller fish.

Our skin-on king salmon fillet, weighing just under 2 pounds, yielded six serving pieces, including these three, grilled on the stove top with fresh lime juice, a little sea salt, Aleppo pepper, and chopped herbs from the garden.

Troll-caught king or chinook salmon are harvested from a boat singly by hand, using a baited hook. The Costco label identifies the salmon as "Product of USA."

On the same day my wife bought Costco's king salmon for $16.99 a pound, Whole Foods Market in Paramus was selling the same fish for $29.99.

At Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, Georgia blueberries have steadily fallen in price, from $6.99 for a 2-pound container when they first appeared about a month ago to $5.99 on Tuesday. Here, I add them to Kirkland Signature Non-Fat Greek Yogurt with a little organic agave syrup. At ShopRite in Paramus, 12-ounce containers of North Carolina blueberries are on sale this week for $2.49.

For breakfast, a simple egg-white omelet with reduced-fat cheese, salsa, and chopped garden herbs, served over organic quinoa prepared in an electric cooker with organic chicken stock and water. A 4-pound bag of organic quinoa is $16.89 at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack, and no rinsing is required.

The light version of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, above, has fewer calories and saturated fat than the light version of Smart Balance with Olive Oil, another butter substitute, below, but more sodium, and both contain palm oil. 

A 15-ounce package of Smart Balance was $3.59 at ShopRite in Paramus, compared to $2.99 for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, a discount of 20 cents. Only the Smart Balance is labeled non-GMO.

A 59-ounce container of Tree Ripe Orange Juice is a better buy per ounce when on sale at the Paramus ShopRite, above, than four 59-ounce containers of Tropicana for $10.79 at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack.

A 3-liter tin of Pons Extra-Virgin Olive Oil from Spain, where it is made from Arbequina Olives, is $17.99 ($6 a liter) at the International Food Warehouse, 370 Essex St., Lodi.

Good buys at Lodi warehouse

One of the problems I encounter at the International Food Warehouse in Lodi is missing or inaccurate price signs and registers not programmed to reflect sale prices.

I received a sales flier with the newspaper, and stopped by today for bottled pasta sauce, extra-virgin olive, salsa and pre-washed packaged greens.

In looking over my receipt before I left store, I saw that I had been overcharged for 24-ounce jars of Naturamica Pasta Sauce from Italy.

The sale price is two jars for $3, but I was charged $1.79 each and had to ask for a refund of $2.32 on eight jars of Marinara Sauce and Garden Sauce.

I also picked up two 5-ounce packages of fresh arugula, and two more of organic baby spinach, mixed with baby kale and baby bok choy, for 99 cents each.

One non-sale item I bought is a 3-liter tin of Pons-brand Extra Virgin Olive Oil, unfiltered, made from Arbequina Olives in Spain ($17.99).

This Spanish EVOO is one of the few at the warehouse that isn't a blend of "Mediterranean" oils from several countries.

This is the first unfiltered oil I've purchased (contains tiny particles of pit and olive), and the can instructs you to shake it well before dispensing.

Sales prices are good through June 23.

A 24-ounce jar of pasta sauce from Italy, without added sugar, is a good buy at $1.50. When heating up the sauce, you can add red wine, extra-virgin olive oil, and drained and rinsed capers and anchovies for a really special taste.

The sign said "2 packs for $4.00," but 5-ounce packages of pre-washed organic and non-organic greens rang up at 99 cents each. They have short expiration dates, however, either Sunday or Monday.

At the food warehouse, pocket breads from Nouri's in Paterson were as stiff as cardboard, and may not have been fresh. They were marked $1.49.