Enjoying homemade pesto, pan-fried fish, pasta with sardines and more

Homemade pesto -- basil from my garden, garlic, grated cheese, pine nuts, salt and extra-virgin olive oil -- is a savory accent on a wedge of sweet-potato frittata.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Fragrant basil leaves growing abundantly in my garden are just a distance memory, but I still have one decent portion of homemade pesto in the freezer.

Although pesto is most commonly used as a dressing for pasta, it's versatile enough to spread on a sandwich or to accent a fish fillet just off the grill.

I also use it in omelets and on frittatas. 

Until Costco Wholesale unveiled Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto in 2013, I always made my own pesto in large batches using a blender recipe that could be frozen before the addition of grated cheese.

You'll find the recipe here: 

How to enjoy pesto without pasta

Now that my plants stand withered from the summer heat, I'll return to enjoying Costco's refrigerated pesto, which uses basil leaves from Italy.

Season one carton or 16 ounces of liquid egg whites mixed with grated cheese before adding the mixture to a 10-inch preheated pan with olive oil. As the crust sets, you can add sweet potato slices, boiled separately until you can pierce them with a fork. Then, move the non-stick pan into the broiler until the crust browns (about 15 minutes at a low broiler setting).

Pesto, which requires no heating, can be added to a frittata after it is removed from the oven. I also added crushed Aleppo pepper.

I used homemade pesto and organic pignoli nuts to dress an 8.8-ounce package of Delverde-brand Tagliatelle Nests with Spinach from Italy. These mouth-filling noodles take only about 5 minutes to reach al-dente perfection. I use unsalted water because there is plenty of sodium in homemade or Costco pesto.

A 10-inch egg-white omelet can be stuffed with Costco's smoked wild salmon, pesto and Mexican-style salsa, all sold under the Kirkland Signature house label. I made this omelet with my own pesto.

I had my omelet for breakfast with a baked sweet potato and grilled Chinese eggplant.

I thought I had found a good buy on wild-caught Gulf Shrimp at H Mart, 260 Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, above and below, but when I turned over the bag, the ingredients included salt and sodium bisulfite, a preservative. I passed.

An unusual item at the Little Ferry H Mart is jackfruit, sold in large pieces for around $5 to $6. If you buy one, make sure you refrigerate it when you get home.

I rely on the Korean supermarket for fresh whole fish at low prices, such as this porgy my wife seasoned and pan fried in olive oil ($2.99 a pound). Three porgies came in under $10. I also picked up baby mustard greens, which were on sale for 78 cents a pound.

Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Spaghetti from ShopRite in Paramus dressed in Victoria Marinara, Moroccan sardines and fresh cherry tomatoes. I added a little extra-virgin olive oil and a few ounces of red wine to the sauce, plus dried Italian herbs and red-pepper flakes.

A heart-healthy dinner for four with leftovers: A 1-pound box of whole-wheat pasta, a 40-ounce jar of marinara and three or four cans of sardines, mashed with a fork before you add them to the sauce. I left a few ounces of sauce in the bottle and used them to poach two organic eggs for breakfast the next day.

Leftover whole-wheat pasta is a great bread substitute at breakfast.

Dozens of free samples, including the full-fat cheeses I rarely buy, are available at Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St. in Englewood, above and below.

I had a hard time resisting marinated cherry size fresh mozzarella, left, and sampled three with a toothpick.

On Friday, I hit the jackpot with one of Jerry's restaurant-quality take-out dinners made with a soft-shell crab. The complete dinner included string beans, pasta, a stuffed mushroom and a cucumber salad, marked down to $5.99 after 4 p.m.

Other Meals To Go were built around a grouper fillet, chicken picata or sausage. 

At ShopRite, 224 Route 4 east at Forest Avenue in Paramus, the store-brand of Greek Non-fat Yogurt with Fruit was on sale this week (75 cents each), and seemed a better buy than other brands, including Oikos, Chobani and Fage. At home, I opened one of the ShopRite cups, below, but found it wasn't full. The cup holds 8 ounces, but contains only 5.3 ounces of thick yogurt and fruit, the net weight listed on the side.

Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice carries a badge from the Non-GMO Project, telling consumers the oranges weren't grown using genetically modified seed. 

At the Costco Wholesale Business Center, 80 South River St. in Hackensack, a 2-pound bag of triple-washed kale was $3.89 on Thursday. A week earlier, I saw the same bag of kale being sold at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro for $5.39 -- a dramatic example of how prices can vary at the two warehouses.

Know what's in your bottled sauce when making penne with sardines

Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Penne with Victoria Marinara Sauce, skinless-and-boneless sardines, anchovies and cherry tomatoes.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The half-dozen ingredients in Victoria Marinara Sauce invite you to improvise.

I often add extra-virgin olive oil, a few ounces of red wine, drained and rinsed anchovies, and seasonings, including powdered garlic, ground black pepper, red-pepper flakes and dried Italian herbs.

Then, I thicken the sauce with three or four cans of heart-healthy sardines with their oil that I mash with a fork first, plus fresh cherry tomatoes, and fresh mint and basil from my garden.

Even if you leave a few ounces of marinara in the 40-ounce bottle with which to poach eggs, you'll have plenty of sauce for 1 pound of Luigi Vitelli-brand Organic Whole Wheat Penne from Italy or other shape of organic whole wheat pasta.

Cooking times, salt

ShopRite, Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's, all in Paramus, stock 1-pound packages of organic whole wheat pasta in various shapes ($1.29 or $1.49).

Not all of the cooking times listed on the packages are reliable, and I've found Whole Foods' imported whole wheat pasta cooks up al dente in much less time than listed, especially the shells.

No need to add salt to the water; there is plenty of sodium in bottled sauces, as well as in anchovies and sardines.

Victoria doesn't add sugar to its sauce, but it's getting harder and harder to find other brands without the sweetener. 

I even saw one brand with butter as the second ingredient after tomatoes.

Two organic eggs poached in leftover Victoria Marinara Sauce with grated cheese and smoked wild salmon, above. I ate them for breakfast over leftover organic whole wheat penne with sardines, below.

The ingredients listed on the front label of Victoria White Linen Marinara Sauce, sold by Costco Wholesale, differ slightly from the version sold in supermarkets. No added sugar is a big draw.

ShopRite in Paramus had a sale this week on Classico Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce without added sugar in 24-ounce jars ($1.49 each), but only reading the ingredients label would tell you the Traditional Sweet Basil, right, has added sugar.

You'll also find added sugar in all of these other Classico Pasta Sauces.

When I read the label on Bongiovi Pasta Sauce, also sold at the Paramus ShopRite, I was shocked to see butter as the second ingredient after Italian tomatoes.

At Jerry's Gourmet & More, 410 S. Dean St. in Englewood, I found another take on pasta with sardines in this restaurant-quality Meal To Go, below.

I plated and reheated all but the Cucumber Salad with Feta Cheese. The complete dinners are reduced to $5.99 after 4 p.m., if there are any left.

Jerry's also had small jars of fruit with Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, and the apricot and plums I bought would pair nicely with the Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese I buy at Costco Wholesale in Teterboro.

Exploring my pantry, fridge and freezer

I'm determined not to go food shopping, even though my wife made a list over the weekend but didn't follow through by actually going to her favorite ShopRite, in Englewood. This morning, she promised to go tomorrow. (See earlier post, "Are we sick of food shopping yet?")

We have plenty of food in the freezer: steak, chicken (feet for soup and pieces), wild salmon, lobster bisque, spinach pies, but I am also trying to eat some meatless meals, so I will serve big spiral pasta in tomato sauce with sardines (lots of Omega-3s and Vitamin C), plus salad and bread.

I have half a pound of the spirals, a half bottle of Fairway Market garlic pasta sauce and three cans of Moroccan sardines in spciy oil from Fattal's in Paterson. There is romaine and green-leaf lettuce, too, plus terrific dinner rolls from Balthazar Bakery in Englewood. And I could open a bottle of red wine and enjoy a glass or two with my dinner, then fall asleep in front of my TV.

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