Fruits and Veggies Monday: Slow Cooker Vegetable Soup with Wild Rice & Lentils

Happy Monday! You know what that means--#fruitsandveggiesmonday time! My weekend was quite busy with running my half marathon and going up to visit @dksart’s parents for his mom’s birthday, so I really had to make my meal prep quick and effective this week. In my part of the world we lost an hour with the time change, too. As if I didn’t feel flustered enough, I am helping cover some clients for a few trainers who are taking a much needed trip this week. Whew, I’m trying not to get tired just thinking about it!

Nevertheless, I was able to squeeze in making three meals in about an hour Sunday afternoon. That’s the beauty of having it a part of my weekly routine—I have some meals that I know I can crank out in no time. I don’t like to eat out anyway, but my days for this week will be so jam-packed (in a good way) that I wouldn’t have time to go pick up a meal anyway. Thus, it was imperative I made a few healthy meals to bring with me to eat in between sessions.

I’ll share the delicious slow cooker vegetable, wild rice and lentil soup that I made in this post. If I get a chance I’ll try to post my other two meals later in the week. In my hour I put together 4 jars of pumpkin apple overnight oats, a simple sweet potato and veggie salad, a smoothie for tomorrow, and my soup. Technically the soup cooked for half the day, but the prep time was “soup”-er easy. ;)

If you hadn’t already guessed, I love the slow cooker. It makes meal prep so much easier. As with last week, I also used a mix of fresh and frozen vegetables in this week’s plan. Even with spring on the horizon, the local produce is not quite abundant just yet. The good thing is I almost always have onions, carrots and celery around the kitchen to form a flavor base for almost anything. I also had a few things pulled from the pantry that I keep stocked, so my grocery bill was pretty inexpensive this week, as well. Woohoo!

Vegetable Soup with Wild Rice and Red Lentils

Makes 8 servings

• 1 cup red lentils, rinsed
• 1 cup wild rice
• ¼ cup tomato paste
• ½ ounce dried shitake mushrooms
• 1 onion, peeled & chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, cored & chopped
• 3 large stalks celery, chopped
• 3-4 small carrots, chopped
• 2 cups cauliflower florets
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 ½ tablespoons Italian seasoning blend
• 8 cups water or veggie broth
• 2 cups chopped fresh leafy greens (I used baby kale)
• juice from half a lemon
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• optional salt & pepper to taste

Prepare your vegetables, and then place everything through the water or broth in your slow cooker. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or until the rice and lentils are done.

Turn off the heat, remove bay leaves, and stir in your greens, lemon juice and vinegar. Taste and adjust spices to your liking. Enjoy!

Thank you to our ever gracious host @lenasveganliving for continuing this massive challenge every week! I know she has some great help in the sponsors and all of the awesome entries, but it is still a lot of work so I’m always thankful for her to keep the veggie love going! And of course the #makeithealthy project is really getting into swing by @woman-onthe-wing, so don’t forget to keep perusing that tag to see what is going on around the healthy lifestyle sphere of Steemit!