Rob Kerr / The BulletinPork slow-cooked in a Crock-Pot is set out with taco fixings.

At the end of a hard day at work, there’s something extremely gratifying about walking into a home filled with the aroma of a meal simmered long in a slow cooker.

So why aren’t you using yours more often? That’s the question my husband posed to me last week in response to my rant on a lack of time and energy to produce delicious meals. After all, he reminded me, our Crock-Pot — aka “slow-cooker” — is the kind and gentle solution for producing maximum flavor and tenderness with minimal effort.

Let’s face it, cooking at a daily pace is frustrating even for those of us who have a genuine passion for cooking. Particularly after you’ve run the numbers and realize that over a lifetime, the family cook cranks out more meals than, well, do we really want to go there? So anytime I can ease the stress and still produce a fine meal I feel I’ve beat the system.

Thus, I’m taking the slow-cooker pledge right now: At a time of year when savory, stewy entrees are most appreciated, I will enlist my slow cooker more often. It can do the heavy lifting in the kitchen while I carry on with my life in other corners of the world.

Beyond simple encouragement to get you back into the slow cooker groove, do I really have to tell you how to use one? The only major piece of advice I have is to brown your meat and onions before adding them to the pot. I know that there are tons of recipes out there extolling the virtues of not doing that, but there’s a huge color and flavor difference in a stew or soup that has started out with browned meat and onions and one that hasn’t had such preliminary treatment.

So without further ado, I’m sharing some of my favorite tried-and-true slow cooker maneuvers. Feel free to fine-tune them to fit your taste. The first recipe, Gingered Beef Short Ribs, was my “company’s coming” meal just last week. I hadn’t made it in quite a while, but remembered how rich and flavorful it was, thanks to the melange of finely minced garlic, carrots, celery, and garlic that melt into the beefy broth, producing an off-the-chart eating experience. Indeed, everyone went home feeling pampered and satisfied.

— Jan Roberts-Dominguez is a Corvallis food writer, cookbook author and artist. Contact: janrd@proaxis.com.