I remember hearing from someone that you can simply type in a command to compile a meteor.JS app into a node.JS app, and then deploy it as a node.JS app. Is that correct? Also, does that mean I can build a completely node.JS app by first building it in Meteor, and then using a command to compile it into node? If so, how can I do that?
You can use tool for doing that: https://github.com/onmodulus/demeteorizer
Tutorial: http://blog.modulus.io/demeteorizer
I believe you are looking for meteor bundle (See documentation). Meteor bundle constructs a tar.gz file from your meteor application. Once extracted, you should be able to run main.js in the extraction directory and your application built with meteor will run as a standard node application.
For clarification, here are some steps to bundle and run your node application built with meteor.
Within your meteor application directory, run:
meteor bundle appName.tar.gz
Then, unpack the bundle that meteor creates:
tar -xvzf appName.tar.gz
If the proper version of node is installed, you should be able to set your environment variables, and run the application.
export MONGO_URL='mongodb://localhost'
export ROOT_URL='http://myApp.com'
export PORT=5000
And finally, run your application. In the directory that you extracted the tar.gz file to, run:
node main.js