Vegetable Soup with Lentils in a Slow Cooker

I was looking in my fridge, freezer and pantry this weekend and found some long forgotten items. I found a bag of green lentils in the pantry, canned beans and canned tomatoes (from the summer canning).  In the freezer I found frozen yellow squash and chicken stock.  The fridge contained onions, carrots, and garlic from my Winter CSA box.  It also contained leftover mushrooms from the Farmer's Market.  I decided to make whatever I find in the house soup and decided to use the above for Lentil and Vegetable Soup. That is the point of this recipe, use up what you have in the house.  Do not go out and buy any vegetables, you can leave out the celery, for example, and it will be OK.  Since I was busy doing chores around the house, the slow cooker was the perfect vessel for this soup. Use vegetable stock in this recipe if you want it to be vegetarian.

Makes 3 quarts of soup

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups green lentils
2 cups sliced yellow squash (frozen or fresh)
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup sliced mushrooms, whatever you have in the house, I used Baby Bellas
2 large carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery
1 28 oz can tomato puree or 2 pint jars of homemade tomato puree
3 TBS tomato paste
6 cups chicken, beef, vegetable stock (or a combination if that is what you have)
2 Bay leaves
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp garlic salt or garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp oregano
4 inch cheese rind

Here's how:

Add all of the ingredients to a slow cooker (place a slow cooker bag inside it to help with clean up). 

You can see the slow cooker bag here

All ingredients in the cooker

Set the cooker to high and cook for 6 hours, until the soup is thickened and the lentils are soft.

Eat some now or freeze for later.