Crock Pot Goodness

I have been thinking about making something in the crock pot, as the season for it has come. I have never done anything without meat in it, so it took a while for me to wrap my head around what exactly would go well in there. The thing about it is - not all veggies are alike, and some of them are more tender than others. Some cook faster than others, so it was hard to come up with a recipe for a while now. 

So today, bed ridden with a cold and hacking up a lung, I just threw everything my weary imagination came up with into the thing and made some soup. Here's the recipe, if you want to try it - it came out pretty delicious:

Kale (mine was blanched and frozen)
Two cans of Northern beans, not drained
Baby carrots
Baby fingerling potatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Sweet potato and garden burgers, minced in the food processor, cooked with chopped onions - to add towards the last hour of cooking. 
Garlic powder, salt and pepper. 

It cooked for about 4 hours and the soup was bursting with flavor. I think in the crock pot the flavor lasts longer than in the regular pot, because there is less evaporation, and the ingredients preserve their shape and texture longer, as they cook. It was delicious! Just what the doctor ordered for this sick chest of mine. 

You want to make sure the onions are really soft and cooked through before putting them in the pot. Cooking onions or garlic in the crock pot makes the whole thing taste very metal-like, for some reason. I learned that the hard way, trust me!