Warm up mug to keep coffee hot for longer

Dear Heloise: This isn’t anything earthshattering, but I found that if I place my coffee mug on top of my coffee maker while the coffee is brewing, it warms up my mug and keeps my coffee warmer, longer.

Beth H., Juneau, Alaska

Dear Heloise: I had a recipe using vinegar to clean my coffee pot, but I can no longer find it.

Do you have a recipe? I know you run vinegar through it to clean it out and then run plain water about twice to eliminate the vinegar, but I cannot remember the amount. I read your column every day in the paper and hope you can help me.

Mary R., Abilene, Texas

Mary, to clean most coffee makers, run full-strength white vinegar (about 6 to 7 cups) through a normal cycle. But don’t go on autopilot and run it through your coffee by mistake! Follow the vinegar with several cycles of plain water. It’s that simple.

If easy and safe cleaning ideas are important to you, I recommend sending

HELOISE

for my pamphlet “Heloise’s Fantabulous Vinegar Hints and More.” You can save a bundle of money by using vinegar in place of some very expensive cleaners, which might be very caustic to your skin and furniture.

To get a copy, simply go to www. Heloise.com, or send $5, along with a stamped, self-addressed long envelope to: Heloise/vinegar, P.O. Box 795001, San Antonio, TX 78279-5001.

Heloise

Dear Heloise: A while ago I was baking a special bread that calls for raisins. I discovered that I was out of raisins, so I substituted dried apricots. I took my kitchen scissors, sprayed them with a nonstick vegetable oil and cut them up into pieces about the size of raisins and did the same thing with pieces of dried apples. I followed the rest of the recipe as usual, and my bread turned out better than ever. I think sometimes a change in a recipe can be very interesting to the taste buds.

Amy W., Vernon, Connecticut

Dear Heloise: I had a hard time getting my kids to eat more fruit and less junk food. Finally, my own mother made a suggestion that worked wonders. She told me to take a banana and cut it up into bite-size pieces, then coat them in a thin layer of chocolate and freeze them on a sheet of wax paper. Now I let them have a few at a time as a snack. This worked so well that I started doing the same thing to apple slices, strawberries and dried pineapple slices. I make sure the chocolate is only one thin layer, and it gets them to eat fruit.