Savory Lentil Soup

Heather asked me for this recipe so I thought I would post it here so others can use it as well. It's a good, healthy but hearty soup that, for some reason, I really like to have in the spring.

In a large Crock Pot (or other slow cooker) combine:

—3 cans vegetable, chicken, or beef stock (or any combination thereof)
—about 3/4 bag of lentils.
—about 3 stocks of chopped celery (with leaves!)
—3-4 chopped carrots
—3 crushed and diced cloves of garlic
—several sprigs of parsley, chopped

Once I have all the ingredients I check to see the ratio of stock to ingredients is. You might need to add more water. Remember that the lentils soak up quite a bit of water. If I add more than a few cups of water then I'll drop in a bit of chicken bullion. Next add spices:

—fresh ground or restaurant style black pepper
—Italian seasonings
—dash of dill weed
—savory
—no salt seasoning (we have some from Big Lots that was cheap and good) or you can add some onion powder and whatever else catches your fancy.
—other seasonings that you like

!!IMPORTANT!!
Don't add salt until the soup has been cooking for several hours. Probably around 3/4 of the way through the cooking process. Salt blocks the water from entering the lentils and they will not soak up enough of the water. Nobody want's crunchy lentil soup.

I usually let the soup cook for at least five hours. This is a flavorful soup but to be quite honest it's not the prettiest looking food in the world so it may not be all that kid friendly.

***EDIT***
I forgot to mention that it's best not to use the lentil soup packages (with alphabet soup in it). The alphabet noodles take less time to cook so they are totally mushy by the time the lentils are done. You can probably experiment with different types of lentils. I've even mixed them with split peas before.