I’ve preserved my parsley abundance this year by making parsley powder, and I’ve been using it to make parsley pasta. I use the same technique to make spinach pasta. I prefer using a powder for these pastas (over steamed or fresh greens) because I find it easier to control the moisture of the pasta this way. If I just want to add a little bit of fresh herbs to my pasta that works out fine, but if I’m trying to make a homogenous-looking green pasta, a lot of greens are needed and it can drastically change the pasta texture. To make spinach pasta most recipes call for steaming the spinach and then squeezing out all the water. I’ve tried this with limited success; it’s really hard to squeeze out all the water well. But using a powder is much more forgiving.

One of my favorite ways to use parsley (or spinach) pasta is to make Straw and Hay. This dish uses half white pasta and half green pasta, with prosciutto and peas, tossed in an oil/butter sauce.

I am also a huge fan of fettuccine alfredo but find that the dish can be too heavy sometimes, so I like to “break up” the heaviness by using parsley noodles.

I’m pretty proud of my pasta, but I am no trained chef or Italian grandmother, so I’m not going to pretend like I have the best pasta recipe and technique out there. I’ve still included my ingredients and instructions for making pasta, so you can see how I incorporate my greens powder into my pasta if you are interested. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups AP flour or Type 00 flour
• 3/4 cup Semolina
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 4 tablespoons of parsley powder (or spinach powder)

Instructions

1. Mix the flour and semolina in a pile on the counter. Then create a well in the center. (I like to use my measuring cup to do this.)
2. In a small bowl whisk the eggs, salt, olive oil, and parsley powder with a fork.
3. Pour the egg mixture into the well in the center of the flour mixture.
4. Continue beating the egg mixture with the fork while slowly drawing in the flour mixture to incorporate everything together.
5. When the mixture gets too stiff to beat with a fork, start using your hands to mix. (I also find it helpful to have a bench scrapper handy for this task.)
   Note: Depending on the humidity and temperature, you might find that you don’t need all of the flour mixture or you might need more.
6. Knead the dough until smooth.
7. Form the dough into a ball and wrap it in plastic wrap.
8. Let it rest for at least an hour.
9. After letting it rest, roll out the dough to the desired thickness and cut as you would like.
10. Cook in well-salted boiling water for a few minutes and then add to your sauce to coat the cooked pasta.