Colored Pasta Dough

These amounts should be enough to color about 1 1/2 pounds of pasta
dough, made with 3 to 4 cups of flour, 4 eggs and 2 tbsp olive oil.
You'll probably need to add a little bit of extra flour to compensate
for the extra moisture from the vegetables.
Green pasta. Parboil 1/2 pound of spinach for about two minutes or
chard for five minutes. Drain, rinse in cold water and squeeze the
leaves as dry as possible. Puree the spinach or chard through a sieve
or food mill, or chop it fine by hand or with a food processor. With
a fork, combine the spinach or chard with the pasta ingredients.
Knead, and roll out.
Speckled green pasta. Trim, wash, pat dry and chop fine about 6
tablespoons of mixed fresh herbs: parsley, sorrel, thyme, sage leaves,
tarragon, lovage, marjoram, basil, dandelion, rocket, hyssop and
tender savory shoots are all suitable. However, the strong herbs --
thyme, sage, savory, marjoram and tarragon -- do not marry well with
some others, so choose your cherb mixture carefully. Stir the herbs
into the dough ingredients with a fork. Knead and roll out.
Red/pink pasta. Boil two small unpeeled beets in salted water for 40
minutes to one hour or until tender. Peel and chop the beets, then
puree them in a food processor. Stir the beet puree into the pasta
dough ingredients before kneading the dough and rolling it out.
Orange pasta. Stir about 1/4 cup of well-reduced tomato sauce or
pureed tomato into pasta dough ingredients. Knead and roll out.
Yellow pasta. Add a pinch of ground saffron to the flour and salt for
the pasta dough. Mix well. Stir in the eggs and oil. Knead and roll
out.