Today I was busy working on border blocks and didn’t want to stop sewing to fix dinner. I kept thinking of places we could grab a bite to eat in town and there was no place I wanted to eat. Instead of stopping sewing and starting cooking . . like I should have done, I just kept sewing and kept wondering what we were going to do for dinner. Then I remembered . . a few months ago when we had turkey with lots of leftovers, I made a big pot of turkey gumbo and canned it.
Vince has a hard time believing that food can be canned and then stuck on the shelf, not refrigerated, and still be safe to eat. I guess his mom didn’t can and he never knew his grandparents . . I don’t know if they do home canning in Sicily or not, but you’d think by now he’d believe me. Most of the time when I’m cooking, he doesn’t have a clue whether or not I’m using something home canned but tonight he knew and I think he was a bit concerned about food safety. If you don’t hear from me again, you’ll know what happened! 
Canned Gumbo
I grabbed a jar of turkey gumbo, heated it up and cooked some rice. I had cauliflower that needed cooking and I remembered that Sheri of The Loopy Ewe fame had just yesterday shared a recipe on her blog for Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower. I fixed that too . . made it look like I had worked real hard in the kitchen, but you know I simply opened a jar, dumped rice in the rice cooker and roasted some cauliflower. The only things I did differently from Sheri’s recipe is that I used Lawry’s Seasoned Salt instead of regular salt and I used a black iron skillet for roasting it.
Gumbo & Roasted Cauliflower
The cauliflower was so very good! Vince said it was the best cauliflower he has ever tasted! Vince didn’t believe that I didn’t put sugar on it because it was a bit sweet.
The gumbo wasn’t half bad either.
Sounds good. We had spaghetti. We ran out of my home canned sauce, so we have been using Ragu, but I add tomatoes and tomato sauce, water used to clean the cans and jar.to it as well as browned ground chuck, onions, garlic basil and right before eating just a pinch of salt. I let it cook to the desired thickness. So it was almost like not cooking.
I had no idea you could can gumbo like that!!! Interesting!!
I remember reading a post about you canning gumbo. I did not feel like cooking tonight either so I called our favorite Mexican place and drove down to pick up dinner. Yum. It has been a few months since we have done this. Used to do it all the time (every Friday night) – but no longer. Met a quilty friend driving back from a quilting class in AZ…we had lunch and visited, talked and talked. Had not seen her for a couple of years. (She is the bff of our friend who did Addie’s owl applique) we had a wonderful lunch, visit and non stop talking. What a great day for me!
You dinner sounded fabulous. but I was just not in the mood to cook. How great that you just had to make rice and the cauliflower…bet it was yummy. Looks great!
haha Judy – I did wonder about that when you said about the gumbo and the stock – who was I to intervene – I knew you knew what you were doing – I do hope you are here tomorrow though
It’s perfectly safe. We’re still here.
I have cooked cauliflower and put it in my soups mashed up and people think it is rice.
I’ve also used it instead of potatoes for “potato” salad and it’s great,
Whenever we went to the farm ( Galen’s home) I always hoped his Mom would fix her canned pork sirloin for lunch. It was deloicious. She always had shelves full of canned things and so did we at home. I did the same until we moved over seas. If the lid is sealed, it’s good!
The food sounds wonderful. I love roasted veggies. Don’t get to have them often enough because some of the time they won’t reheat well.
I love Lawry’s – I’m going to try that the next time I make the cauliflower. Great idea!
My husband’s mom used to can pork loin and it was the best meat I had ever eaten. She made a gravy from the broth in the jar. Wish I had some now!!! Before we were married I had never heard of canning meat.