How to Cook Dinner While You're at Work

Let your crockpot do the bulk of the work for dinner tonight.

In the middle of a hectic week at work, even the best-laid dinner schemes of moms and men can go awry—frequently because the cook is too tired to pull together a meal and often at the expense of flavor and nutritive value. Rather than settle for a fat-laden, over-salted bucket of this or a greasy bag of that, why not spend a few minutes in the morning getting a jump-start on dinner with your crockpot?

A real meal eaten on a plate instead of in a wrapper is sure to give you and your family an end-of-day boost—both mentally and nutritionally. And if there's a better form of aromatherapy to soothe frazzled nerves after a long day than a home that smells throughout of slow-simmered pork, sausages or stew, we certainly haven't heard of it. Here are three recipes to get you started.