Slow cooker lamb korma

Lamb Korma in the slow cooker

I'm working a couple evenings a week, so I've dragged out the slow cooker to use on those nights.  I love the slow cooker, if you use it correctly, you can make tasty meals that don't all taste the same.  Which was my initial criticism of it, having grown up in a household where it was in use fairly often, with unvaried results - whatever was put in, the same thing came out at the end,  and I didn't like it.   My mum often says she is a bad cook, I don't think this is true, but she isn't an adventurous cook (although sometimes adventure can be alarming, I've watched my dad empty jars of this and that into his meals in combinations that would make you weep), and she doesn't like it, so she takes short cuts.

This mornings efforts have left me with a houseful of smoke from rendering the fat on my piece of lamb, but the spice combo was nice, and I think the hours in the cooker should finish it off nicely.

1.5kg lamb (the recipe I am basing this on said shoulder, I hate lamb shoulder so I'm using a leg, I've done this before and it worked, so I expect it will again).
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 onions
3 garlic cloves
5cm piece of ginger
1 tsp cumin, nutmeg, garam masala, cinnamon, chilli flakes
3 bay leaves
1/2 cup greek yoghurt
1/2 cup chicken stock
coriander and papa dums and rice to serve, naan would be good too but I don't have that, and I'm not making it today.

Heat oil in the fry pan and render the fat.  This is smoky, open your windows, or you will be accused of trying ot burn the house down.

Cut onions into quarter and put in slow cooker
Place the lamb into the slow cooker, on top of the onions.  Add ginger and garlic to the pan.  I washed the pan this morning and used fresh oil at this point, because my oil was a bit sooty.  Maybe I did burn it just a little.  Fry for a couple minutes, add dry spices and cook for 30 seconds, add chicken stock and yoghurt and mix well.

Pour over lamb in the slow cooker.  I've set mine to 9 hours on low.  I am hoping this will work out ok.  Tonight, when I leave work, I'll ring home to let J know to shred the lamb and stir through some more yoghurt and sour cream, probably totalling about a cup extra.  And to put some rice on.  The bone will come out of the lamb at the shredding stage, nice and tidy.

I tasted the spice and stock mixture before I put it in the cooker, it was yummy.  I'm hopeful.

Oreo cheesecake

We had a birthday this week, and it seems there finally been a movement away from pavlova.  Thank heavens.  I actually don't like pavlova particularly, so when everyone was choosing pav as their birthday cake I was a bit sad.  Cheesecake is the new pavlova in this house, so much more scope for creativity and tastes so much better.

We had a cheesecake for the family party, and I made the raspberry one I've already blogged about, except with blue berries, which was tasty and delicious.  Then for the friend party, I made an Oreo cheesecake.  I quite like Oreos, and I'll buy them if they are on special.  They weren't on special this week, and I felt a bit gypped having to pay full price for them, but this is what happens when it's a birthday.  I've also paid $7 for a punnet of strawberries for the birthday pav in May.  Which didn't please me either.

So the Oreo cheesecake was requested, but I didn't like the recipe I found online, and there has just been a cheesecake cooked on MKR that scored two 10's, so I looked at that recipe, which wasn't an Oreo one, then I had a look at the raspberry/blueberry/ricotta one, and decided to reinvent the whole thing.  Fortunately it was a great success.  I also managed to cut it into exactly the right number of pieces for the guests present.  Which is good and bad - bad because there was no piece left over to have with my coffee this morning.  Good because it made me look super efficient and clever at dividing things up nicely.

OREO CHEESECAKE

1 pkt chocolate ripple biscuits 

100g butter500g cream cheese

125g sour cream

3 eggs

170g brown sugar 

12 Oreos

Preheat oven to 150 degrees (this was fan forced)

Crush chocolate ripple biscuits (I did all this in the thermomix, and it didn't explode and give me third degree burns, that poor woman, horrific, but don't purée 100degree stuff at high speeds and expect things to end well, just saying).

Melt butter in the microwave.  Technically you could do this in thermomix too, but I'm all for making washing up easy, and tipping the bikkies out into another bowl and adding the butter pre melted is in line with that personal philosophy.

Grease a flan or whatever you are using, I have a lovely glass fluted flan pan that I got for my 21st that I always use for cheesecake.  Press biscuit mix into the pan and refrigerate while you do the other bit.

Rinse the thermomix and give it a dry.  Whiz up the rest of the ingredients, except the Oreos in thermomix until smooth.  You can do this just as easily with beaters/mix master/food processor.  I use the thermomix because that's what I have.

Pour the mixture into the biscuit  

Chop up the Oreos, I cut them into quarters, and poke them into the top of the cheesecake.

Bake for 30 minutes until set.  It will brown a little on top.  My oven is quite fast I think, so maybe the cooking time will be longer in another oven.  I'm always burning things in my oven, because it cooks quicker than I expect.

Once it's cool, refrigerate until serving.  Keep it covered so it doesn't absorb fridge smells.  

Very happy with this one.  I should have taken a photo, but I didn't.  Again.  Whoops.