About

Welcome to Creative Canning!

My name is Ashley, and I’ve been canning food at home for more than 20 years. Each year, my family and I put up over a thousand jars of homemade food right on our pantry shelf, and I’m so happy to share those recipes and techniques with you.

I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Biology from Dartmouth College, and I spent the first five years of my post-college career working in logistics and quality control for surgical instrument sterilization at Dartmouth Health. The principles behind safe home food preservation aren’t all that different, they’re just applied on a smaller, home scale.

All the recipes on this site follow USDA guidelines where appropriate, along with safe canning guidance from state extension services, independent testing labs, and other reputable sources like Ball Canning, Bernardin, Mrs. Wages, and Pomona’s Pectin.

I send out seasonal canning recipes every week on my Substack Newsletter, and I’d love to have you along! The signup is below:

My family and I live in a solar-powered homestead on 30 acres in rural Vermont, and all of these recipes have been tested in my home kitchen.

Credentials and Certifications

I take food safety seriously, and I work from tested, research-based methods whenever I’m developing and updating recipes. Here are the credentials and trainings that shape how I approach canning and preservation on Creative Canning:

• Certified Master Food Preserver (Cornell Cooperative Extension) Trained in safe, tested home food preservation practices, with a focus on research-backed processing methods.
• Certificate in Home Food Preservation (Michigan State University) Formal coursework in USDA-aligned preservation principles, recipe safety, and best practices.
• B.A. in Biology (Dartmouth College) A strong foundation in microbiology, chemistry, and food safety fundamentals that underpin preservation science.
• Six Sigma Black Belt certified (as a founding team member of the Value Institute at Dartmouth Hitchcock) Building on my background in surgical instrument sterilization quality control, where the goal is consistent, repeatable processes with minimal room for error, the same mindset I bring to safe, tested home canning.

My Safe Canning Recipe Review Process

Every recipe on Creative Canning is designed for the same outcome: jars that are safe, shelf-stable, and repeatable. Here’s how I vet what I publish:

• I start with tested guidance from USDA/NCHFP, Extension publications, and established canning authorities (including Ball/Bernardin and reputable commercial pectin manufacturers).
• I treat canning like a controlled process. With a background in quality control, I focus on clear, repeatable steps that reduce mistakes.
• I only change “safe variables.” Flavor tweaks are fine, but I don’t freestyle anything that affects safety: jar size, acidity, density/thickening, processing method, or processing time.
• I avoid unsafe trends and shortcuts. If a method relies on untested processing, risky ingredient changes, or questionable techniques, it doesn’t go on this site.
• I write to prevent common failure points. Posts include the details that matter: jar size, headspace, pack style where relevant, altitude adjustments, and correct canner procedure.
• I update recipes when guidance changes so posts don’t drift out of date.

If you’re ever unsure about a substitution, my rule is straightforward: if it isn’t supported by tested guidance or common sense, I don’t recommend it.

My Writing

I also run the blog Practical Self Reliance, which has information on all manner of food preservation techniques (cheesemaking, salt curing, fermenting) as well as just about everything else you’d need to learn to be self-reliant in this modern world. It has its own substack as well, and you can subscribe to practical self-reliance separately as well. That newsletter comes out weekly and covers canning, as well as everything else.

And I share my favorite recipes on my food blog at Adamant Kitchen.

In the past, I’ve written for Mother Earth News and local agriculture advocacy organizations, and my work has been featured all over the internet.

I’m so happy to have you here so I can share this abundance with you!