Now that we are approaching winter, I have started making porridge for breakfast. My usual approach is to put 1 cup of oats in a jug, add any dried fruit or other flavours (such as flaked almonds or shredded coconut), followed by 1½ cups of milk. I then leave this in the fridge overnight, ready to cook in the morning.

The porridge takes about 3 minutes to cook in the microwave. I don't add any sugar but I sometimes add a bit of honey.

I had spare porridge left over today (dried mango and coconut flavour). I thought I'd have a go at making a cake from it, following the same idea as the rice pudding cake. I had some 'cereal dust' from the bottom of a couple of boxes of cereal so I put that in too.

The end result was surprisingly similar to the rice pudding cake, with a moist, chewy and cakey texture. It's a good way of using up leftover porridge.

The second recipe this week was a Cauliflower Pizza. My version was topped with bacon, black pudding, baked beans and cheese (using up some kitchen leftovers). I used half a cauliflower to make the base and I didn't really measure anything, I just mixed it together until it looked right.

Making the base was a bit long-winded because our food processor is a bit small and it took several batches to break up the cauliflower and grate the cheese. This is a novel way of serving cauli, a bit more original than cauliflower cheese (which I do like - that's how I'll probably eat the other half).