Slow-Cooker Sweet Potato and Lentil Soup

Hi everyone!  I'm excited to share another soup recipe with you today.  I know there's a popular tagline of "Meatless Mondays" or other catchy titles floating around the web for meat-free recipes.  While I don't cook meatless on certain days we do go without meat once or twice a week, as I've stated on the blog before.  Mostly for cost reasons, and it also benefits our health too! Plus, we really like the meatless meals we've had so far, furthering our interest in continuing!
Keep in mind that I always serve other things on the side, such as cheese and crackers, olives, baby carrots, or celery with peanut butter.

Slow-Cooker Sweet Potato and Lentil Soup
Ingredients:
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 and 1/2 cup baby carrots, cut in half
3 stalks celery, diced
1 small white onion, diced
3/4 cups lentils (I used what was available at Wal-Mart)
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. curry powder
salt
1 TB unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic

*Lemon juice
*Parsley or cilantro

Directions: 
1.) Combine the sweet potato, carrots, celery, onion, lentils, ginger, curry powder, and 1 teaspoon salt in a 4-6 quart slow cooker.  Add 6 cups water and stir, then cover and cook on low for around 8 hours. You don't need to stir the soup during this time!

2.) After the 8 hours (or close to it), stir the soup quickly with a whisk to make a rough puree.

3.) Melt the butter in a small skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the garlic and cook about 1 minute.  Stir the mixture into the soup and add your desired amount of lemon juice, parsley, or cilantro.

*I made several modifications to a recipe I originally found in a Food Network magazine.  The original recipe called for cilantro, but I used parsley instead.  Also, I just squirted some lemon juice in the soup, stirred and then tasted.  The soup was delicious with some additional lemon juice added on top in each individual bowl before serving!

Happy Eating!
Sara :)