There is something wholesome and good about home canning and preserving  

For starters, you know where your food comes from, you take pride and pleasure “putting up” delicious foods for yourself and your family to enjoy during later months – you may even partake in gift-giving and creative mason jar crafts all in the name of Canning.  But there is nothing worse than spending all of the time, money and effort of growing, shopping, cutting, chopping, preparing, cooking and processing home canned goods, only to have them go to waste on your pantry shelf. So why did I publish recipes for home canners?

The path that lead to writing and creating my cookbook

When I was a new canner, I sought after many recipes that looked cool and exciting.  I wasn’t afraid to use ingredients I hadn’t heard of before.  If a friend raved about a new recipe, you better believe I was making a triple batch that weekend.  Like many of us, I was just excited to do something good for my family however I struggled to find recipes showing me what to make with the home canned goods I had spent hours preserving.

In 2010, I started The Canning Diva® because I wanted to use the knowledge I had about canning, preserving and safe practices to help educate people on this time-honored craft and bridge the generational gap of those who never were taught the art of home canning.  In doing so, I revamped family recipes and created new ones I knew my family and friends would love.  My focus was to also create recipes demonstrating how to use home-canned good in practical meal creation.

Teaching people the fun art of water bath canning, demystifying and removing the fear associated with pressure canning and creating fun recipes has been my focus for the last six years now.  I am blessed to say that I chose to become The Canning Diva® at the most opportune time giving the state of our nation’s health, our loose food labeling laws and in an era where growing your own garden or joining a CSA is at its highest since the Great Depression. 

I spend 4 years working on my cookbook and I am proud to say I have joined together the best of both worlds – the traditional canning recipe with a meal creation focus.  Knowing many of you struggled as I did with traditional canning cookbooks, Canning Full Circle was born to encourage growing, preserving and enjoying.

Happy Canning~
Diane, The Canning Diva®