CSA Winter Share - December: Hearty Vegetable and Lentil Soup

So I am playing the home version of "Chopped" with my CSA box this month.  It has a lot of winter vegetables - squashes, greens and root vegetables.  It is cold out today, about 10 degrees colder than average, and it is windy.  This weather calls for a hearty, warm soup that makes you forget about how cold it is outside.  Since I had several errands to run I knew the slow cooker would be perfect to cook this soup while I worked on other things. 

All of the ingredients in this soup are organic and about as local as I can get.  The vegetables and garlic are from the local farm and organic.  The tomatoes and stock are organic too.  This recipe can be made with store bought ingredients but I wanted to see what I could do with my Winter Share and I think it came out well.

Recipe:

1 Winter Squash (such as acorn or butternut), cubed
5-6 stalks celery, including the leaves, chopped
3-4 carrots, chopped
1 bunch kale, sliced in strips, stem removed
1 red onion, chopped
2 small turnips, diced
1.5 cups green lentils
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Parmegiano-Reggiano Cheese Rind
1 14.5 oz can diced tomotoes, organic, with Italian herbs
2 boxes chicken stock
1 TBS dried thyme
1 TBS salt
1 tsp pepper

Here's how:

Combine all of the ingredients in the slow cooker. Cook on high for 6 hours or 10 hours on low.  It tastes better the next day after it has sat in the fridge but is great fresh from the pot.

Diced acorn squash

Celery from the CSA box

Chopped celery, leaves too

Carrots from the CSA box

Diced carrots

Kale from the CSA box. 

Pull the leaves from the stem and cut into strips.

Kale all ready

Red onion from the CSA box

Chopped onions

Turnips from the CSA box

Diced turnips

Green Lentils from Whole Foods.  Find them in the bulk bins.

Whole Foods brand stock.  Make homemade if you can.

Garlic from Garden of Eve's Garlic Fest, chopped

Parmeggiano cheese rind from my freezer

Can of Organic tomotoes, also from Whole Foods

All combined in the slow cooker