Salmon with Mustard and Gruyere Herb Crust

I love salmon and often when I'm planning my week's meals, I put down salmon for one night - it tastes so good I don't really need to do anything, and can quickly cook a piece of salmon and some vegetables for a delicious dinner.

Sometimes though it's nice to do something a bit different. I found this recipe in my BBC Saturday Kitchen Cookbook; it's also available on the BBC website.

You make a crust from breadcrumbs, cheese and herb, and press it on top of the salmon. I didn't bother with the part where you chill it in the fridge and instead mixed it and pressed it straight onto the fish.

The fish is baked in a mixture of fish stock and wine which keeps it light and gives it a lovely flavour. I didn't bother roasting the tomatoes as I don't like them, but didn't think the dish lacked anything for it.

Movie night: pairing your wine with your popcorn

It's Saturday night so I'm sure a lot of you are enjoying a drink and a snack, maybe watching the X Factor or like me right now watching a film. What's your go-to snack for movie night?

Popcorn is closely associated with watching films since it's sold in cinemas, though that wasn't always the case. If you want to know how popcorn came to be sold in cinemas have a read of this article, it's fascinating!

I've sometimes made popcorn at home to recreate the movie night feel and my preferred drink to enjoy at the same time is either a glass of crisp white wine or a vodka and coke. The people at Skinny Pop, which makes popcorn with no artificial flavourings and no trans fat, asked me to share the infographic above. They offer a range of flavours - though their products are only sold in the US - and suggest different wines to go with each one, which is an interesting idea and something I haven't come across before. So my preferred sauvignon blanc would go well with original or salt and pepper popcorn, whereas I've discovered that the sweeter popcorns, which I do think taste better, would go better with a glass of red. Have you thought about pairing your drinks to your snacks in this way?

Disclaimer: I was not paid any compensation and did not receive any free products for this post. All text and opinions are my own.

Slow Cooker Beef in Orange

This started out as a boeuf bourgignon but I didn't have any red wine so I made it up as I went along, using white wine from a bottle that was already open and throwing in half an orange I had in the fridge from a previous recipe. It tasted delicious!

Here's what I did:
To serve two: take a packet of cubed casserole steak and brown in a frying pan. Chop a few rashers of bacon and fry as well. Then place the beef and bacon in the slow cooker along with some chopped onion, red pepper if desired,  a squeeze of tomato puree, 100ml white wine, 250ml beef stock (made from a stock cube), a dash of orange juice or the squeezed juice from half an orange, and an entire orange half. Cook on high for about 3 hours - depending on the settings of your slow cooker, you could also put this on the lower setting for a longer time.

When the dish is cooked, strain the cooking liquid into a small pan and mix with 1 tsp cornflour. Bring to the boil, stirring, until the sauce has thickened. Pour over the beef and serve - this goes well with mashed potatoes and green veg.

I'm sending this to the Slow Cooker Challenge, hosted by Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen.