Pasta with Orange Cream Sauce

About a month ago, I decided to try an Italian recipe that I’d seen in a magazine. It looked really heavy but luxurious, and I thought it could be a nice treat. It was pasta with fish in an orange cream sauce and I thought that the combination of orange and cream would be something different. Obviously, I left off the fish, and instead I used vegetables, which also served to break up the heaviness a bit. The final product looked lovely on the plate: pasta in a creamy sauce, with spring green scattered amongst it, all sprinkled with bits of orange peel. The orange flavour was unexpected and was a nice change from lemon and vegetable, which is more usual.

Ingredients:
500 g pasta (penne looks nice in this dish, and I always use whole wheat)
200 g green vegetables (peas are perfect, and you can also use fresh spinach, or broccoli florets)
1 cup double cream (heavy cream for you Americans)
1 orange
fresh parsley
freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

1. Boil the pasta according to the instructions on the package.
2. To save on washing up, I boil the vegetables with the pasta. At them to the pot when there are about 5 minutes to go for the pasta.
3. Meanwhile, gently warm the cream and grate the orange peel.
4. Add the peel to the cream and then add the juice from the orange.
5. Drain the pasta and vegetables and mix this with the cream sauce.
6. Sprinkle with finely chopped parsley and black pepper.