Succulent Slow Cooked Short Ribs

It's the perfect time of year to whip out your slow cooker.  You can even stick "frozen" meat in it, and it will come out gorgeously tender.  The broth I put in with the short ribs is unmeasured, but it was lovely and subtle In flavouring.  The ribs came out gloriously tender and were delish.  Normally I would have thrown some red wine or beer in the broth, but you know...kids.....I didn't want to possibly have to eat all those delicious short ribs by myself!  So the first thing you are going to do, is throw some flour into a bag with a little salt and pepper and drench the short ribs, a few at a time and put into a buttered pan and brown them.  Once nice and brown, put into the slow cooker.  For the broth I used what I had and improvised and I suggest you do too!  In a bowl mix together 3/4 a carton of chicken broth, and if you have it, use beef broth, though the chicken was really nice too.  Then mix in 1/4 cupish of ketchup, 1/4 cupish of brown sugar, about 5 tbsp. of balsamic vinegar, and about the same in soy sauce, and then 1 tbsp. of minced garlic.  Give it a little taste, then add whatever more you like, just as long as it's not too salty.  Here's the thing.  Slow Cookers are a la magic.  You can make so many succulent recipes in them.  My short ribs came out perfect.  I cooked them all day - put them in at 11 in the morning, and we ate about 7 at night.  Just check the ribs ever now and then and move them around so the sauce gets every inch of them.  Oh yes, I also enjoyed an entire bottle of 2008 Marechal Foch from Lang Vineyards.  So delish.  So divine!