I agree, as long as you are longing for the salt flavor, you won't notice the other flavors. My favorite way to dress pasta is to sautee some garlic, add chopped fresh tomatoes just until warmed, toss in the pasta, add copious amounts of chopped fresh basil, some pepper and freshly grated parmesan, yummy. Those fresh homegrown SunGold cherry tomatoes are lovely for this purpose. Of course I don't like the cooked tomato sauces very much, so.... And, as has been mentioned, if the tomatoes weren't wonderful, the sauce won't be. Sometimes canned tomatoes really are better than fresh. My doctor told me yesterday that average humans have 10,000 taste buds. Those regenerate approximately every 10 days to 2 weeks, so we get a whole new set of taste buds. If you don't get the new taste buds accustomed to salt, you won't miss it after a few weeks, and will even notice the salty flavor more, so there's hope. As for the tomato powder, I haven't tried it. I sliced tomatoes, put them in the dehydrator. 40 HOURS LATER, they were still flesible but certainly couldn't be powdered. And yes, they were homegrown tomatoes and yes, I have a very nice Excaliber dehydrator, so that's not it. It just didn't work and was a waste of time and perfectly good tomatoes. Well, it wasn't, because I re-hydrated the tomatoes by throwing them in soup, but they couldn't be powdered. so, I'd suggest you buy some of the commercially prepared stuff first and see if it helps, then you could try to make your own, hopefully with better success than I had. Also, if you get tomatoes that are wonderful in season, you can just wash them and toss them in the freezer in a bag. When they thaw, the skins slip right off and you have really good tomatoes. If you have any freezer room, LOL. I can mine and that way I can add no salt at all and still have wonderful home grown tomatoes in the middle of winter. Annie

I may have asked that first question prematurely. I just looked at the Iron Chef website and found this recipe. It's more or less what I was planning to do with the sauce. I'm not sure how to work water into the chicken with my hands until it's absorbed. The chicken I buy always seems plumped up with water anyway. The recipe says it makes 4 servings and there would be 2T of sauce in each serving, so the sodium content is easy to figure out. But the ingredients don't list ginger, and ginger is included in the instructions. So how much ginger would I use and should it be minced? Ingredients 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast sliced across grain in 1/4 inch strips 3 Tbsp water 1 Â 2 Tbs flour (or cornstarch) 1 lb stir fry vegetables 2 Tbsp oil 1 medium garlic clove, peeled, minced 8 Tbsp Iron Chef General TsoÂs sauce Directions Place chicken in small bowl. Add water Tbsp at a time working in with hands until water is absorbed into chcken. Sprinkle flour (or cornstarch) over chicken and work in with hands to coat all pieces. Blanch Vegetables in boiling water until crisp-tender, about 2-3 min. drain and set aside. Heat non-stick wok or large skillet on HIGH for 2 min. Add vegetable oil; swirl to coat pan (oil should smoke slightly) Add chicken, garlic, and ginger. stir fry for 3 min. Add Iron Chef sauce; stir fry for 2 min. Add vegetables and stir fry to heat through, 30 seconds Remove from pan and serve over rice.

Well, I like this forum! I rarely post, consider myself a great cook but am far from fancy or traditional with my cooking. I've gotten great results from postings when needed and have not been insulted once. Hey, not bad! I enjoyed reading this topic especially since I have a great deal of trouble using packaged foods due to sodium content. I DO use packaged foods though! I've never made my own yoghurt--never even tried to. Same with butter, cream cheese, aged cheese (I have made paneer by heating milk and adding lime juice), pasta and that is all I can think of that I need packaged food for. I've made lots of things by just trying it out. Ketchup wasn't that hard, no-sodium tomato paste, vinegar, garlic and onion powder (actually, I like the dehydrated granules), black pepper, cumin, dash of lemon juice, dash of water. I just read the bottle to get an idea of what went in the stuff. And, yes, I buy the packaged no-salt ketchup quite often. So quick and easy! There is no way I'm going to pay for packaged dressing; I make my own even though I almost always just use straight balsamic. My guy makes a great vegan Caesar dressing using nutritional yeast, almond meal, lemon juice, vinegar, no-salt stone ground mustard and an unbelievable amount of fresh garlic. Think of all the oil we are avoiding this way! I do love olive oil though~ Canned soups are a no-go mainly because of the salt. I can't actually taste the can but sometimes I can taste the plastic when I buy things in plastic bottles. We made our own "power bars" for the first time a few weeks ago. We had made granola bars and similar things before but never with the intent to get protein, carbs and low calories all in one bar. They are great for hiking! Yesterday, my guy made bagels from scratch for the first time, just for me as they had no salt and almost zero sodium. Did you know that a regular sesame bagel has over 600mg sodium?! The ones he made were topped with black sesame seeds and tasted very good. They were missing that salty taste but, oh well. I think one of the biggest factors with packaged foods is that they are very inexpensive, especially mixes and things like rice a roni or hamburger helper. They can also make things go very quickly in the kitchen for those who have limited amounts of time to feed entire families. There are lots of things we make that cost more than buying pre-made but there are also lots of savings involved in making things ourselves. We may not be rich but we make the effort to allow a good food budget so we can eat as much natural and organic things as possible. We try to stay away from preservatives but that is hard to do with packaged foods. I'm pretty darned impressed by some of the things people make on the board. Pickled veggies and other home-canned items are the most intriguing to me. It was a good read. Thanks, Jennifer

The mulch isn't the problem but already planted seedlings are. Are your seedlings planted in rows or scatter-sown? When row planted you would just rake the mulch back from the plants and then do what is called side-dressing of the row in a 4" deep trench about 3-4" out from the row of seedlings. Cover with soil and then rake the mulch back into place. If scatter sown that is impossible so all you can do is dig some pockets for it in among them - depends on the plant spacing. Using one of the many liquid forms of N would work better in that case. If you dilute it in water it needs to be well diluted and you still need to keep it from direct contact with the plants. And keep in mind that tested N levels all depends on the soil temp. The cooler the soil the lower in N it tests so as the soil warms the soil nitrogen levels will rise too. Don't over do it. Better to add frequently in small amounts at a time rather than over lead it. Dave