I don't know what type of meat sauce to call this...

...but I really don't want to use Rachel Ray's name for it. She calls it "Not-A-Boar Meat Sauce and Pasta" and she subtitles it "Can't find wild boar in your neighborhood? Neither can Rachel! She created this "fake-out" dish instead". Ughhh is that a pun on the word "bore"? Could the caption be more cheesy? She really irks me. So last night, when my mom described this amazing pasta dish she made that didn't have tomatoes and had cocoa powder (among other ingredients, none that caught my attention like those two) I was intrigued and thought it sounded fun to try. When she revealed it was a Rachel Ray recipe, I was quite dismayed (sweet Jesus I hope I'm not ruining my culinary career before it even starts by bagging Rachel Ray so much). My mother was still quite happy with her meal, and after assuring she too isn't Rachel Ray's number one fan, I downloaded the recipe and got to cooking (well perhaps I stopped at the store first).Here's the link: http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=3174Ingredients:1 pound rigatoni2 tablespoons olive oil (or if you're Rachel Ray EVOO. Ridic)3/4 pound ground pork3/4 pound ground beef1 small carrot, finely chopped or grated1 small onion, finely chopped3 cloves garlic (seems like a lot, but given the quantity of pasta and meat, really not. Go for it!)3 sprigs thyme, stems discarded and leaves finely chopped (I omitted this at the request of a fellow diner, I didn't miss it)1 bay leaf1 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder2 pinches ground cloves or allspice1/4 cup tomato paste1/2 cup dry white wine2 cups chicken stock1/2 cup whole milk (I used 1/4 c. skim milk, and 1/4 c. of half and half  b/c that's what I had in the fridge)1 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheesePrep: Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it add the pasta and cook it until al dente. Drain.While the pasta is working, in a Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat the EVOO, two turns of the pan, over medium-high heat, until smoking. Add the pork and beef and cook, stirring, until browned, 10-12 minutes. Stir in the carrot, onion, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, cocoa and cloves; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste for 1 minute, then stir in the wine. Stir in the chicken stock and milk, lower the heat and simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaf.Stir the pasta into the sauce and simmer for 5 minutes more. Stir in the cheese, to coat. Serve the pasta in shallow bowls.-------------------------------------------------------------------I will give Miss Ray that this dish is very easy to prepare. Took maybe 45 minutes to prepare, and nothing was more complicated than chopping the onion and grating the carrot. The only advice in terms of preparation I'd give is to make sure all the ingredients that go in once the meat is cooked are ready to plop right in; I found myself scurrying to get them all in!The cocoa powder was an interesting addition - I wonder how they came up with it. I accidentally bought cocoa powder w/chocolate chips (presumably for hot chocolate drinkers), but they melted right into the sauce, you'd never know. I initially thought that when my mom mentioned no tomatoes and chocolate sauce that it reminded me of a mole sauce, but it really isn't anything at all alike. And in the sense that there are no tomatoes, there's still tomato paste, adding a red color to the sauce. I think the best way to describe it is a variation on a bolognese sauce, sans the tomatoes. It has the same texture, with the meat doing the staring of the dish, and the other flavors backing it up. The sauce coats the pasta, and the meat hides in the hollowness of the the rigatoni.Recently I've been using a lot of recipes that call for a dry white wine (I used Chardonnay, seemed to work!) and milk. I love the richness the wine adds, giving the sauce another dimension. I always feel like my recipes are extra fancy when the wine aromas float up right after you add it. The other smell explosion was the addition of the garlic, onion and carrot to the pork and beef. That's the point when my worries about this sauce melted away as the dish moved away from ground meat into an actual dish.I thought when I added the chicken stock that 2 cups seemed like a bit much - it didn't thicken as much as I'd like it, but it didn't seem to dilute any of the flavors. I'd maybe try to see what cutting it a bit down does, but in the end it turned out alright. The sauce just looked too fluid in the pot, it made me a bit nervous.It's a hearty dish that fills your belly and warms you up, great for a cold night (or a mild night in October, you know, just maybe not great for a scorcher in July). It's a huge recipe (4 servings according to Rachel, but that must be why America is leading the world in the obesity race), and I'd say you'd get about 6 servings that won't leave you feeling peckish after. All in all, I really liked this dish. It's gotten the "repeat" seal of approval from others, and I'm looking forward to having it for lunch tomorrow! xxx