Q and A: Onions, Canning pudding, and Cutting hay

Onions

I have been reading about how onions can be used to trap bacteria. Recommendations include using raw, unpeeled onions as well as onions cut in half. The recommendation is to never re-use a cut onion even if it is kept in a plastic bag in the fridge. How do you keep stored onions from attracting bacteria and making you sick when you eat them?

David Read
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Sorry, but I don’t buy the “trapping bacteria” thing. Nearly every non-acid food, onions included, have the possibility of becoming contaminated, when left out or in the fridge for lengthy times. (Of course, the longer and the warmer the temperature, the sooner this will happen.) Stored onions will not make you sick when used when they are firm and nice. If you eat one that is mushy and discolored, you could get sick. — Jackie

Canning pudding

Can you can pudding?

Phyllis Shear
Plains, Montana

This is one thing that doesn’t can well; it’s sort of like the “cream-of” soups. Cook it up fresh, instead, using your pantry foods and home-raised milk. — Jackie

Cutting hay

So glad to hear you baled some great hay but it reminded me of a question I have had for some time. What is the difference between a first, second or third cutting of hay? Which is best?

Also, when feeding, which animals do you feed alfalfa and who gets the timothy? What type of hay did you just bale?

Deborah Motylinski
Brecksville, Ohio

First crop (or cutting) hay is usually taller and has more stems. It’s great for horses, donkeys, mature goats, and cattle. Second or third cutting hay is usually more clover or alfalfa, as the grasses, such as timothy and orchard grass, don’t re-grow as quickly. Second or third hay is more leafy and less stem. It is finer hay. While I’ve fed this to horses and cattle, it’s usually more expensive if you buy it, so when you have a choice, due to cost, reserve the second or third cutting hay for dairy goats and cows that are milking heavily, calves, kids, lambs, and even pigs. Very little alfalfa is raised here, as it often winter-kills, due to our cold winters. As a substitute, many farmers grow bird’s-foot trefoil, a similar legume with small leaves and stems, like a yellow-flowered alfalfa. The hay we just put up is timothy, alsike clover, and bird’s-foot trefoil, mixed, with several patches of reed canary grass. (Reed canary grass is a tall, quick growing grass that likes damp spots, which our country has plenty of! It has tender, large leaves, which the animals LOVE. It is a productive grass and we may get a second cutting off these spots.) — Jackie