Shades of Green Homemade Tagliatelle with Asparagus, Arugula & Pistachios

Spring has sprung and you can see a bounty of these gorgeous seasonal asparagus everywhere. I have finally learned to use only seasonal vegetables for the maximum flavor & taste. Seasonal fruits & vegetables are  also a lot better for us nutritionally and not to mention much easier on the wallet.

Asparagus is one of those vegetables that is best eaten in season otherwise it has a bland taste and an unpleasant stringy & woodsy texture. Asparagus is one of nature’s true food heroes as a source of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron. Asparagus is also packed in the naturally occurring phytochemicals of glutathione, rutin, and folic acid. Asparagus, next to orange juice, is regarded as the second best whole foods source of folic acid

Shades of Green recipe idea was inspired by a sweet sweet friend Nadia Wasti, who happens to be an author/editor of a beautiful food blog called for the love of yum! Check out her blog for mouthwatering recipes! Her wonderful recipe Shades of Green Chopped Salad was one of the best recipes picked by the editors of Food 52 as a runner up in a contest. She has always been an inspiration to me and I have learned so much about food blogging from her. She has always been gracious in giving me advice, she’s a beautiful human being inside & out. Nadia was one of the first food bloggers I met when I started my blog back in February 2010. She made me feel welcomed in the blogging world and was always there to answer any of my newly blogger questions. I’m most thankful to her kindness and cherish her friendship.

Ever since I started my blog I have met so many talented & friendly bloggers who have been an ultimate inspiration to me and I truly love our blogging community!

I couldn’t resist buying the gorgeous asparagus in the markets right now and started planning how I was going to use it. The vibrant green color reminded me of Nadia’s recipe title, “Shades of Green”, that gave me the idea of using all green vegetables in this recipe. I also chose to add baby arugula and chopped roasted pistachios to this recipe just because they are one of my favorite ingredients. I knew I wanted to make a pasta dish with these fresh green ingredients, so I decided to make a homemade tagliatelle. I absolutely adore making homemade pasta, there’s something organic about it which gives me so much pleasure & joy!

Tagliatelle is an egg based pasta which only has four ingredients mainly consisting of eggs, flour, olive oil & salt. I find the eggs gives the pasta a richer flavor & texture and makes  it easy to work with the dough.  I love using my hand-crank pasta maker which I bought when I was in my 20′s and is still working great and cranking out gorgeous pasta.

For this pasta recipe I experimented with organic whole wheat flour but I quickly discovered that in order to make the dough elastic enough to roll out, it needed a higher gluten content than whole grain flours provide. So to add the gluten in the pasta I used organic unbleached all-purpose flour to the recipe. I also noticed that there were different sauces that work well with whole wheat egg pasta, these sauces tend to be more vegetable based. I would highly encourage you to make pasta at home, it is truly a gratifying experience, I even get my two boys and hubby to help out and they love it. Buon appetito!