Lentil Soup with Winter Vegetables - PUBLISHED

I'm not sure if I want to alter much in this. It is a good vegetable soup, period. Nothing amazing about it, but soothing. We both felt like this. I want to make it for other people to get more opinions.
1 - Switched the type of fat to try to get more earthiness in the flavour (it's no longer vegetarian). Also added bay leaves and switched up the cooking order. Report at 10! :)
2 - I like it! Ben would like a little more punch in the flavour, but I think he can be satisfied with cheese and crusty bread or crackers as accompaniment.
3 - I've started to list the variations I make in recipes - there's so much that can just be substituted depending on what I have on hand. And, ultimately, that is frugal and resilient - there is no single slavish recipe to follow, they're just suggestions, and as my confidence in my knowledge of flavours and techniques increases, it becomes easier to switch things to suit the contents of my larder.
4 - I rendered a whole bunch of lard and was left with the globs of fatty tissue. We are running low on bacon from our half of a pig from last year. We are also self-isolating during the Covid-19 pandemic and we are running low on all vegetable oils. So I thought I'd try to render more fat from the globs and it worked like a charm. I'd recommend adding more salt, since the fat is plain, the bacon is salty, and the veg version has soy sauce (which I don't yet know how to make therefore I don't consider it a resilient food).

5 - Made this with the soy sauce variation and it was very much appreciated; I also used lard. It was prepared to feed 6 people, so I doubled the recipe successfully. The beef stock was a good alteration. Graduating to Test 3.

6 - Made it again but with no soy sauce, lard and spinach, and it was still good. I'm voing to remove the recommended 1tsp soy sauce if I don't use bacon.

1 cup lentils du Puy 
1 bay leaf

2 sprigs fresh thyme 

6 oz bacon or just 1⁄4 cup (2oz/58gr) lard 
2 carrots (6oz/170gr), finely diced

1 small celeriac or parsnip (8oz/250gr) or both, finely diced

1 leek or onion (6oz/170gr), finely chopped 

4 cloves garlic, minced  

4 to 5 cups beef stock (30gr of paste concentrate)

1⁄4 tsp pepper

1 1⁄4 tsp salt 

A handful green leaves - spinach or chard or arugula or radish tops, chopped (about 2 to 3oz/75gr)

1. With bay leaf and thyme boil lentils for 30 minutes in enough water to cover plus an inch and set aside.
2. If using bacon, cut bacon into match-stick sized lardons and, in your soup pot, render the fat from it. Once the bacon is brown and crispy, remove it and set it aside to use as a garnish when serving. 
3. To the fat add the carrots, celeriac and leek. Cook, stirring, until the vegetables have softened.
4. Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 to 3 minutes.
5. With their cooking liquid, add the lentils to the soup pot. Add the beef stock, bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Season with the salt and pepper and continue cooking until the lentils are tender, about 5 minutes more.
6. With an immersion blender or by transferring 1⁄3 of the soup to a blender, mash part of the soup to create a different texture in the broth. Add more stock if you find it too thick OR blend more of the lentils if you find it to be too thin.
7. Add greens, and keep warm long enough to let the leaves wilt.