• Baked potatoes are great in a slow cooker – just wrap them in tinfoil, bake them on high, and they’ll be done when you arrive home. Throw some meat on the grill and you’ll have an instant meal.

• I use a slow cooker to thaw and brown hamburger. You do need to be home to make this work, but it saves a ton of energy as well as clean-up (and for even easier clean-up, I highly recommend slow cooker liners). Place the meat frozen in the slow cooker, turn it on high, and come back every 30 minutes to scrape off the outside meat. It’ll be defrosted and cooked in less than two hours. Add your remaining ingredients, and you’ll have a homemade dinner start-to-finish in just a few hours and no clean up time.

• For chicken, place frozen parts in the slow cooker, checking back every 30 minutes and rotating until they are completely cooked. Add the remaining ingredients, and once more, there’s very little clean up for a full meal.

• You can follow the same method for a roast as well. To keep a roast moist, use some sort of a red sauce – anything from salsa, to canned tomatoes, to Italian stewed tomatoes, to tomato sauce will work. I’m not a fan of tomatoes, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the meat was so moist and flavorful.

• Finally, add a can or two of Cream of Golden Mushroom soup to your slow cooker for a nice and simple gravy.