Homemade Cavatelli with Vodka Sauce

The recipe is from Lidia's Italy. The semola makes a silky smooth dough and the cooked pasta is pleasantly chewy. I ran out of patience shaping the individual cavatelli, and just ended up rolling them between my palms. A hand cranked cavatelli maker with wooden rollers is now on my Amazon wish list.

The sauce is half an onion very thinly sliced and sauteed, an anchovy mashed, a small can of tomato paste, half a cup of water and a cup of cream, a lot of salt and pepper and a big splash of vodka.

Chocolate Rum Cake Balls, No Cake Mix or Canned Frosting Alllowed

These chocolate rum cake balls combine two super simple recipes:  Beatty's Chocolate Cake, courtesy of Ina Garten, and Creamy Chocolate Frosting, courtesy of Cook's Illustrated. Bake the cake in a 9x13 pan, or in cupcake liners, or in a couple of 8 or 9 inch round or square pans, and when it cools just dump it into a bowl and break it up into crumbs. Then moisten the crumbs generously with rum -- 1/3 to 1/2 cup -- and fold in the entire batch of frosting. Refrigerate for several hours, roll into balls, roll the balls in almond meal seasoned with fleur de sel, and let ripen in the refrigerator as much as four or even five days. The cake balls change texture and develop flavor as they sit. They start very good and they become spectacular.

To everyone caught up in the cake ball craze, please, please, just put down the cake mix and the canned frosting and walk away slowly. It gets better, it really does!