In today's Bite: Lighter roasts, 'apeeling' apples and Anzac sweets

Coffee cream filled Anzac bites. Photo / Bite magazine

Find all your favourite bits from today's Bite magazine online. Follow the hyperlinks in Jo Elwin's editor's letter and lose yourself in bite.co.nz.

As you know, I am a roast fan and I made two over a chilly Central Otago Easter weekend. Kathy Paterson's roasted rolled pork loin with gravy added a special touch to Good Friday, and Sunday was a chicken roasted simply with a few herbs, spices and a lemon in the cavity. It was in the oven within 15 minutes of arriving home very late from an afternoon of golf and we were eating just over an hour later. It's such an easy way to cook and we enjoyed it more than the mooted takeaways.

Ray McVinnie has some delicious lighter roast ideas for autumn. Photos / Bite magazine

Ray has three ways to keep roasts lighter in the warmer autumn temperatures. A butterflied leg of lamb with mushrooms, grilled cos lettuce and feta cream; sirloin roasted with pumpkin and beetroot and roast chicken with Chinese flavours and cucumber, peanut salad. He also has a bunch of clever ideas to get those kids into the kitchen to help cook- one of them a simple roasted whole chicken.

For Anzac Day, coffee cream filled Anzac bites and baked apples with Anzac flavours - something to follow a roast, perhaps? Apples are at their best right now and Warren Elwin has used them to made a quartet of ... ah ... 'apeeling' dishes including a Dutch apple cake to bake on your day off tomorrow. Allyson Gofton's Roquefort and prune pie would also make a decadent holiday bake.

Warren Elwin's apple dishes. Photos / Bite magazine

Chocolate covered coffee beans do nothing for me as a whole, but Peter Gordon's suggestions for how to incorporate them into cooking saw me put the packet I had in the cupboard straight into the freezer.

Dinner tonight is Vietnamese Chicken and Noodles. Photo / Bite magazine

Megan May is making over our breakfast oats and dinner tonight is Vietnamese chicken and noodles.