Zesty Veggie and Barley Soup... in the crockpot!

I love my crockpot.  I commute pretty far to work, so I leave the house before 7am, and generally get home again just before 7pm.  It's a long day, and usually by the time I get home, I am starving and don't want to spend an hour making dinner.  So, I have a big collection of 30-minute recipes, a big collection of "cheater" recipes, and, especially, crockpot recipes.

Here's a recent experiment that turned out really well.  This soup is "Rustic" in style, coarsely chopped veggies, thick hearty base, and a bit of bite.  It makes 6-8 servings.

Crockpot Veggie Barley Soup

Nouns:

1/2 cup dry red beans, rinsed

1 cup dry barley, rinsed

1 medium onion, chopped

4-6 carrots, peeled and chopped

4-6 celery stalks, chopped

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1 can condensed tomato soup

1 can diced tomatoes 

2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce (if you don't have this, add red pepper flakes and a few cloves of minced garlic, to taste, but really, get some of this!  It is great stuff!)

2 veggie bouillon cubes

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried oregano

4 cups water

Verbs:

 Put all the ingredients in the crockpot.  Set to Low and cook for 6 hours.  Serve.  I have such a long day that I cooked mine for 12 hours, and it turned out just fine.  You might want to add a little more water if you do that, but it's not really necessary.  Also, I do all my chopping and rinsing the night before, put all the non-liquid ingredients in the crock, and stick the crock in the fridge over night.  In the morning, I pull it out of the fridge, add the wet ingredients, and turn it on.  So easy.