The Trouble with Pasta

There’s an awesome Italian chain in the area called Mamma Lucia’s.  It’s great food that’s reasonably priced….and the blue tinted water glasses make me feel like the water I drink there is extra pure. Their biggest “problem” is that whenever I order my favorite dish – Penne Norcina (one of the best pasta dishes I’ve EVER tasted) – they ALWAYS bring me a plate piled high with food, which means I unfortunately get to eat a delicious pasta dinner for 3 nights. Okay, that really isn’t a problem. The real problem I have is this… How do you heat up this delectable nutmeg flavored, cream-based sauce without having everything separate into a big pile of oil and little globs of white stuff?

After Googling around, it looked like there were several recommendations to add milk while slowly heating up the pasta. I decided to try this method, starting with my pasta in a small sauce pan over low heat. I slowly added about 3 Tbsp. of milk.  The results are also shown below.

Before Heating:

After Heating:

*Note* – You can see a thin pool and a several beads of oil that’s on top of the cream sauce part.

So here’s my question – is this the best that can be done? Did I even heat it up properly? Is there any way to make it so there isn’t a big puddle of oil separated from the rest of the sauce? I’m hoping a pro-chef out there can share some tips, since I still have enough left-overs for 2 more meals!