For those of you who are eight to fivers or better, a friend of mine turned me on to crockpot.com. I forgot that Crock-pot is the brand name of my slow cooker, not the generic product name (ah, going down the path of Band-Aid and Kleenex), but nonetheless, this Web site has some sweet recipes that will have you slow cooking in no time.

I think one of the reasons people don't use their slow cookers often enough is because they only know a handful of dishes, but over the years, I've offered up some goodies on OnMilwaukee.com, like my slow cooker BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and stuffed peppers.

Crockpot.com outdoes me by about 100 recipes. You'll find everything here, from seafood dishes to beef stroganoff and chicken Marsala. And while we found the stroganoff not be quite as good as my stovetop version, it was still very, very good, and quick and easy on a working day.

We've now made just about every protein in the slow cooker with good success, and they have a good stock of vegetarian recipes as well. The best part is, all you have to do is remember to plug in the cooker in the morning before work, and you're guaranteed to come home to a hot, home-cooked meal.