End of the Garden Vegetable Soup

There is nothing I love more than a big bowl of soup! Therefore, I was so happy to see that the URS theme was soup this week. Since the end of August, I have been making at least one kind of soup each week and posting the recipe. It's bee a blast!

A few weeks ago, SnoWhite posted a recipe for End-of-Summer Harvest Soup based on a soup she found from the Crockpot Lady. I really liked the idea of making a vegetable soup that used up all the last bits of produce that we have kicking around. Because of what I had, my soup looks a bit different than SnoWhite's but I am so glad I got the idea from her! The best thing about this soup is that you can pretty much change it up and add/take out whatever suits your preference. It's an everything type of soup!

End of my garden vegetable soup - adapted from SnoWhite
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 large summer squash, chopped
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
3 pods okra, sliced

1 can stewed tomatoes
1 T Italian seasoning
1 tsp minced garlic

2 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
3/4 cup green lentils, rinsed
1/4 cup small pasta

1. Layer all vegetables in the crockpot. Top with stewed tomatoes and stir well.

2. Add broth, water, garlic and Italian seasoning. Add rinsed lentils and stir to combine.

3. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours, until vegetables are cooked but still firm. Add pasta. Cover and cook another 30 minutes until pasta is cooked.

Enjoy! Makes 12 servings.

I love this soup. The combination of so many vegetables is just delicious to me. The fabulous dude, on the other hand, was not as impressed. The day I made this soup, I was going to be leaving for bible study before he got home so I ate mine and then left the rest in the fridge for him and his buddy to heat up when they got home.

Later, I discovered that their conversation went something like this, as the fabulous dude opened the bowl that the soup was in. "Hokey smokes, that's a LOT of vegetables", says the Fabulous Dude. Then his buddy looked at it and said, "Do you think there's anything else we could eat"?

When I got home I asked them how they liked the soup and they both kind of just looked at me. I looked at the FD and said, "You hated it, right?" (I knew he would, by the way). He admitted that it was "not his favourite". His friend told me it was devoid of any flavor. I told him I'd never feed him again!

Later, I asked the fabulous dude what was really wrong with the soup. "Well, first of all," he states, "it has no meat".

"Oh, okay. What else?"

"That's pretty much it."

It sure is hard to please a meat eating hubby all the time :D

So, if you love veggies this is a soup for you!

Some other soup recipes we (I) love are sweet potato, pea soup, roasted vegetable, corn and chicken chowder and more!