I’ve been a bit absent, and thus, silent lately. I’ve really, truly…been pondering the best way to serve the couple dozen wonderful humans inside this community. Here’s the conclusion I’ve reached. Ultimately, sometime this year I will be creating and launching my own app where everything is simplified: a place for recipes—a place to connect and ask questions—a place for sourdough bread baking resources—and a place for anything else I find helpful in making your life better. I was going to close this group down and just refund anyone who paid anything. However, I still want to use this to test some stuff out, share recipes in here and communicate with y’all. The first 25 members acted quickly and were able to join for free. The remaining others paid either $10/year or are paying $1/month. I will happily refund you and remove you from the group, but if you choose to stay you will get early access to my app for free. I will need some people to test it out and give me feedback. I’m perfectly okay with whatever you choose to do. Just DM me on here or on social media (or email [email protected]) and I’ll refund you right away. I’m working on some new sourdough content and recipes so stay tuned for those as I’ll be launching them inside here first! Gratitude, Jake Widmann

I saw a comment somewhere on my social media the other day about hamburger helper. It reminded me of my early teens and going to my dad’s on the weekends. Boy, did we eat a good amount of hamburger helper style dinners. It may not be great for you, but it did taste great, and I loved that time with him. That comment, however, did inspire me to try and create my own style of hamburger helper, but homemade. Here’s the recipe I whipped up: - 1 package pasta (penne works well) - 1 tbsp olive oil - 1 medium onion chopped - 2 pounds ground beef - 1 tsp garlic powder - 2 (14 ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juice - 1 (6 oz can) tomato paste - 1 tsp Dijon mustard - 1 tsp Italian seasoning - 3/4 cup heavy cream - Salt & pepper to taste - Freshly grated cheese—I used Parmesan and Gouda DIRECTIONS: * Cook noodles at any time. 1.) Heat olive oil in a large pan. Add in chopped onions and cook until translucent. 2.) In the same pan add in your ground beef and garlic powder. Brown your beef. 3.) Once browned, add in your diced tomatoes, tomato paste, Dijon mustard, and Italian seasoning. Stir and bring to a simmer. 4.) Once simmering, add in your heavy cream and season with salt and pepper to your liking. Stir in the cheese. 5.) Serve and enjoy!