--- title: Pumpkin Ginger Tortellini Soup Recipe: a Fall Favorite description: My daughter is 4 years old, and one of her favorite fall activities is picking pumpkins. When we are at the pumpkin patch, she inevitably... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7137410/pumpkin-ginger-tortellini-soup-the-naptime-chefs-recipe-for-getting-more-out-of-your-jack-o-lantern/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2012-10-19T12:00:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T10:14:56.746Z article:section: Health og:title: Pumpkin Ginger Tortellini Soup: The Naptime Chef’s Recipe for Getting More out of Your Jack-o'-Lantern og:description: Chef and author Kelsey Banfield on how parents can turn pumpkin carving into a healthy cooking experience with delicious results og:url: https://time.com/archive/7137410/pumpkin-ginger-tortellini-soup-the-naptime-chefs-recipe-for-getting-more-out-of-your-jack-o-lantern/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafbd14e58098273e/698a93269d83e80a14ba02d9/naptimechefpumpkinsoup.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3515 og:image:height: 1977 og:image:alt: NaptimeChefPumpkinSoup og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Pumpkin Ginger Tortellini Soup: The Naptime Chef’s Recipe for Getting More out of Your Jack-o'-Lantern twitter:description: Chef and author Kelsey Banfield on how parents can turn pumpkin carving into a healthy cooking experience with delicious results twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafbd14e58098273e/698a93269d83e80a14ba02d9/naptimechefpumpkinsoup.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # Pumpkin Ginger Tortellini Soup: The Naptime Chef’s Recipe for Getting More out of Your Jack-o'-Lantern > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Oct 19, 2012 12:00 PM UTC  Courtesy of Source by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Oct 19, 2012 12:00 PM UTC My daughter is 4 years old, and one of her favorite fall activities is picking pumpkins. When we are at the pumpkin patch, she inevitably declares at least half a dozen pumpkins “perfect” for our house, and after some negotiation, we usually allow her to select four. While this means a lot of carving on our end, I don’t mind, because what it really means to me is more pumpkin to cook with. To introduce my daughter to pumpkin as a healthy food, I enlist her help in scooping out the pumpkin guts before she moves on to carving the jack-o’-lantern. We fill large mixing bowls with the stringy orange insides, and she _ooh_s and _aah_s at the number of seeds, which, when toasted, are one of her favorite snacks. Then I leave her and her father to do the actual pumpkin face carving while I go inside to start dinner. HEY THERE, LIKE THE INTRO, BUT CAN YOU COLLAPSE IT INTO ONE SHORT GRAPH--TAKING TOO LONG TO GET TO THE MEAT HERE. MAYBE MAKE IT MORE UNIVERSAL RATHER THAN REFERRING TO A PROFESSIONAL WRITER'S PROBLEMS SPECIFICALLY, , SAY I'VE REWRITTEN THIS FIRST PARAGRAPH THREE TIMES... AND AM STARTING TO ASK MYSELF WEHTHER I'M QUALIFIED TO BE WRITING ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL. It’s a common writer problem. You sit down at the keyboard, type out a first paragraph, and spend almost as much time rewriting that first paragraph as you do the rest of the piece. But if you’re me, writing this particular column, you produce a 300-word introduction about Hillary Clinton and confidence before realizing that you actually hate the introduction. So you delete it. You start over. You move sentences around, try different introductions, wonder if you’re making your point. You delete it again. It’s been two hours now, and you’ve accomplished little to nothing. You start thinking to yourself, “Why do I even have a column?” Before you know it, you’ve spiraled into a state of near disaster, and you’re back to the Hillary Clinton lead. You start wondering if you even deserve to get paid for this piece of writing. You wonder why you ever became a journalist. You are pretty sure that your new writing contract will be revoked by the end of the week. And then you realize you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be writing about: feminine self-doubting to the point of crippling paralysis. You take a deep breath, get a cup of coffee, and sit back down. You change your lead again. The Confidence Code, the newest book on female equality -- and how we can achieve it -- by journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, takes on the science and art of self-assurance (as well as the fact that women like me struggle with it disproportionately). By now we’ve all heard the stories about how women are climbing the corporate ranks, dominating the workforce and graduating in higher numbers than men. But confidence, the authors argue -- and they're not the first to do so -- is as an equally important marker (and indicator) of professional success. And it’s confidence where women are lacking. “I think there’s a mainstream recognition now that organizations are better off with a diverse group of women at the top​ -- and a focus on how to get more women in the pipeline and in power,” says Shipman. “But there’s also something inside of us that’s holding us back.” How can we equal the ranks of the professional world if we don’t even believe we’re supposed to be there? Former self-doubters themselves, Kay and Shipman realized over dinner one night that each struggled with the same problem. Kay, a news anchor for the BBC, has covered three presidential elections, the wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and speaks several languages. And yet she spent her career convinced she wasn’t smart enough to compete for the top jobs. Shipman, a contributor to ABC and Good Morning America, had a habit of telling people she’d gotten “lucky” when she asked how she got into journalism. She began her career as a foreign correspondent at CNN, reporting from Moscow. But the confidence problem wasn’t just limited to them. In two decades covering American politics, they’d interviewed some of the most powerful women in the nation -- lawmakers and CEOs, professional athletes, leaders of social movements. And time and again, they saw the same self-doubt: bright women with ideas afraid to raise their hands, speak up, ask for a raise or a promotion; that inexplicable feeling that they don’t own the right to rule at the top. “If they are feeling all that,” the authors write, “imagine what it is like for the rest of us.” What it’s like looks something like this. When a professional endeavor goes wrong, women are more likely to blame themselves, while they credit circumstance – or other people – for their success. (Men do the opposite.) Women are more likely than men to be perfectionists, holding themselves back from answering a question, applying for a new job, asking for a raise, until we’re 110 percent sure we are ready for it. (Women applied for a promotion only when they met 100 percent of the qualifications. Men applied when they met 50 percent.) Women are a quarter as likely as men to negotiate a raise. We doubt our opinions and begin our sentences with “I don’t know if this is right, but—.” We are more prone to “rumination” than men – which causes us to overthink and overanalyze. (Sound familiar?) “At this point in my career, I’ve employed so many young people,” Hillary Clinton recently told the crowd of women at a conference in New York. “And one of the differences is when I say to a young woman, ‘I want you to take on this extra responsibility,” almost invariably she says, ‘Do you think I’m ready?’ But when I ask a man, he goes, ‘How high, how fast, when do I start?!’” “Too many young women,” Clinton continued, “are harder on themselves than circumstances warrant. They are too often selling themselves short.” Kay and Shipman offer plenty of advice for how to overcome that confidence gap. But perhaps the most helpful piece is simply acknowledging that the gap exists at all. Knowing that it’s there, it’s real, it’s even genetic – and then trying to correct for it. “I think it's important for women to recognize that it's totally normal for us to feel nervous in situations in which we're so often the only woman in the room,” says Kay. Adds Shipman: “I really believe that once you identify an issue it's so much easier to tackle it.” (**MORE:** [Apple Cake: The Naptime Chef’s Fall Recipe for Foodies Who Are Also Harried Parents](http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/12/apple-cake-the-naptime-chefs-fall-recipe-for-foodies-who-are-also-harried-parents/)) One of the first things I make with our pumpkin is this simple fall soup. The rich pumpkin brew is highlighted with spicy ginger and notes of cinnamon. We love adding some fresh cheese tortellini at the end to make it a full meal, but it can be omitted if you prefer your soup pasta-free. It is the best kind of healthy comfort food for fall, and the gentle sweetness makes it especially appealing to children. I usually serve it with a simple side of sliced ham and some fresh baguette for mopping the bowl clean. **Pumpkin Ginger Tortellini Soup** _Ingredients_ 9 lb. (the contents of about two or three medium-size pumpkins) of pumpkin, with seeds and strings removed ½ cup olive oil, divided ½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed ½ medium yellow onion, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, minced 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 5 cups chicken or vegetable stock 1 cup apple cider 12 oz. fresh cheese tortellini 1\. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line one or two rimmed baking sheets with aluminum foil. 2\. Cut the pumpkin into roughly even-size 2-in. cubes. Toss the cubes lightly with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Roast the pumpkin for about 45 minutes, or until softened and a light golden brown.\* 3\. Meanwhile, in a large heavy stockpot over medium heat, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the onion, garlic, ginger and cinnamon and sauté until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Slowly pour in the stock and bring everything to a simmer. 4\. Use a large spoon to add the roasted pumpkin to the simmering soup. Then use an immersion blender to puree the mixture until smooth, or, alternatively, scoop the soup into a blender and puree until smooth. 5\. Pour the soup back into the pot and pour in the apple cider and tortellini. Simmer the soup until the tortellini is cooked through and floats to the top, about 6 to 8 minutes. Serve hot.\*\* _\*Canned pumpkin can be substituted. Omit the roasting stage._ _\*\* This soup freezes beautifully without the tortellini in it. Simply place it in a freezer-safe container and leave 1 inch of space at the top to allow for expansion when the soup is frozen. To reheat, thaw the soup in a saucepan over medium-low heat, add the fresh tortellini and simmer until completely cooked._ (**SPECIAL:** [Top 10 Food Substitutions for Healthier Cooking](http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/03/top-10-food-substitutions-for-healthier-cooking/#applesauce-for-oil-butter-or-sugar)) _Kelsey Banfield is the author of the popular family cooking blog_ [_The Naptime Chef_](http://www.thenaptimechef.com/)_. Her first cookbook,_ [The Naptime Chef: Fitting Great Food into Family Life](http://www.amazon.com/Naptime-Chef-Fitting-Great-Family/dp/0762442123)_, was published in spring 2012 by Running Press._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7137410/pumpkin-ginger-tortellini-soup-the-naptime-chefs-recipe-for-getting-more-out-of-your-jack-o-lantern/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7137410/pumpkin-ginger-tortellini-soup-the-naptime-chefs-recipe-for-getting-more-out-of-your-jack-o-lantern/"},"headline":"Pumpkin Ginger Tortellini Soup: The Naptime Chef’s Recipe for Getting More out of Your Jack-o'-Lantern","datePublished":"2012-10-19T12:00:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T10:14:56.746Z","description":"My daughter is 4 years old, and one of her favorite fall activities is picking pumpkins. 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