Spinach Tortellini Soup

Two weeks old. Elijah has discovered the concept of 2 AM and has strong opinions about it. His opinion is: 2 AM is an excellent time to be awake, hungry, and loud. My opinion is different. My opinion is that 2 AM should not exist and that whoever invented the clock should have stopped at 1 AM. But Elijah is the boss now. Elijah is a seven-pound dictator with no concept of time zones and absolute authority over my sleep schedule. I obey because I have no choice and because his face at 2 AM — scrunched, furious, desperately hungry — is the most beautiful terrible thing I've ever seen.

The breastfeeding is hard. Harder than I remember with Chloe and Jayden, or maybe I've forgotten (mothers forget the hard parts; it's how the species continues). The latch is wrong, then right, then wrong again. My nipples are cracked. The lactation consultant came (telehealth — everything is telehealth now, even breastfeeding, which requires a physical breast and a physical baby and a physical mouth and none of those things work well through a screen). She watched me nurse through my phone camera and said, "Tilt him more to the left." I tilted. It helped. Marginally. I'll take marginal. Marginal is the new standard.

Terrence came for the weekend. He held Elijah the entire time — Friday night to Sunday afternoon, with breaks only for sleep and bathroom. He's learning the rhythms: feed, burp, sleep, change, repeat. The algorithm of a newborn. He's a natural in a different way than Chloe — where Chloe is methodical, Terrence is instinctive. He holds the baby like he's held babies before (he hasn't). He sways when he holds him, a natural swaying that nobody taught him. The sway is in him. The sway is genetic or divine or just what happens when a good man holds his son for the first time and doesn't let go.

Chloe finished Harry Potter. All seven books. She's eight. She read the entire Harry Potter series during a pandemic while her mother gave birth and she is unfazed and brilliant and slightly terrifying. She asked for the next thing. I gave her "The Giver." She started it on the couch while Terrence swayed with Elijah and Jayden drove fire trucks under the coffee table and I sat in the rocking chair too tired to read, too tired to cook, too tired for anything except watching my family exist in the same room and thinking: this. This is the picture. The one that holds everything.

I cooked for the first time since the birth. One meal. Just one. Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. The easiest meal in the Mitchell repertoire. The meal that says: I am barely functioning but I am functioning and the functioning produces food, however simple. The grilled cheese was good. The soup was from a can. I don't apologize for canned soup. Canned soup fed me when I was a child and it feeds my children now and the can doesn't care about my pride. The can just feeds.

The grilled cheese and canned soup got us through that first week, and I’m not ashamed — the can fed us and I love the can. But when I started feeling just the tiniest bit more like a person again, this spinach tortellini soup was the next step: still fast, still forgiving, still the kind of thing you can make with one hand while you’re swaying because Terrence has the baby and you finally have two minutes upright. It’s warm the way that week needed warm, and it’s the kind of soup you can eat from a mug in a rocking chair without apologizing to anyone.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
6 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1 package (9 oz) refrigerated cheese tortellini
3 cups fresh baby spinach
Salt and black pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

Instructions

Saute the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more until fragrant.
Add seasoning and tomatoes. Stir in the Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes, then add the canned diced tomatoes with their juices. Stir to combine.
Pour in the broth. Add the chicken or vegetable broth and bring the soup to a gentle boil over medium-high heat.
Cook the tortellini. Add the refrigerated tortellini to the boiling broth. Cook according to package directions, usually 7–9 minutes, until the tortellini are tender and floating.
Wilt the spinach. Reduce heat to low and stir in the baby spinach. Cook for 1–2 minutes until the spinach is just wilted. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
Serve. Ladle into bowls (or mugs — no judgment) and top with grated Parmesan. Serve immediately with grilled cheese or crusty bread if you have it in you.

Nutrition (per serving)

Spinach Tortellini Soup — The Meal That Proves You’re Still Functioning