Over at Engadget, there was a post on how to convert your air popcorn popper into a coffee roaster. An interesting bit of tech work, but they definitely made it more sound more difficult than it really is. And the commenters seemed certain that trying to use an air popper to roast coffee beans was a move likely to burn down the house. Clearly, they haven't roasted coffee before. I have used an air popper to roast beans successfully, without any serious modifications to the machinery - and without burning my house down, as I cleverly thought to do my roasting outside. In retrospect, this was an excellent move, as the process produces a fair amount of smoke.

Here are some tips and instructions for roasting your own coffee.

 As Sarah pointed out, not everyone has a heart-shaped cookie cutter to help them make Valentine's Day Cookies. While the use of a cookie cutter can turn just about any cookie into something appropriate for the holiday, it certainly isn't your only option. These Easy Sugared Hearts are formed by hand, rolling and pinching the soft dough into a heart shape. The dough is easy to work with, so your kids can even help you shape them. The cookies are dipped into both red and plain granulated sugar before baking, which adds extra sweetness and beautiful color. The cookies are light and crisp without being crunchy. Not too sweet, despite the sugar coating, there is also a hint of butter and vanilla in them. They go perfectly with a cup of tea, coffee or hot chocolate.

Few things can compare with a buttery scone, warm from the oven, though these are perfectly good at room temperature, too. In honor of D-day, they are packed with three types of dried fruits: sweet cherries, golden raisins and dried apricots. These create a rich blend of flavors and lend a lot of sweetness to the scones, but feel free so pick and choose any dried fruits you like, from blueberries to currants. The scones are absolutely delicious with a cup of coffee or tea.

Meatloaf is the ultimate comfort food. It is hearty, flavorful and can be subject to nearly infinite variations. Some meatloaves are all beef, while some are made with turkey or even faux meat, which preserves the spirit of the dish, if not the meat. Meatloaves have been around as long as ground meat and are larger versions of meatballs.  Due to their size, they can easily be served as a main course and the leftovers sliced for sandwiches. Flavorings and some "filler," in the form of vegetables, egg, breadcrumbs or rice, are added to help the loaf maintain its shape. The practice of "stretching the meat" with filler was popular and widely practiced during the lean war years of the early 20th century.

While I enjoy many, many varieties of homemade muffins, from light and moist to heavy and healthy, I have always found the bakery-like muffin difficult to recreate at home. Who doesn't love the fluffy interior, crispy ledge and high, domed top of muffins from a coffee shop or bakery? With the help of The Best Recipe, I compiled a few tips to picking a recipe and recreating these at home:

• Choose a muffin recipe that uses yogurt or buttermilk as a liquid, which will make a thicker batter and support the muffin in a high rise.
• A thick batter will allow you to heap the batter into muffin tins without it spreading all over the pan. This will ensure a high rise and create a small shelf around the base of the muffin.
• Even when using an acidic ingredient like yogurt or buttermilk, a muffin leavened mostly with baking powder will achieve a higher rise than one with baking soda alone.
• Using butter instead of oil and creaming it with the sugar will create a fluffier texture, not to mention that butter will give the muffins a more delicate (and delicious) flavor than oil.

Here is a fuller account of making bakery-style muffins, as well as a recipe for the Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Muffins pictured above. Or, you can check out Elise's Blueberry Muffin variation of the same recipe.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]