Have Your Mushroom-Sauce and Eat it Too!

As I mentioned in a previous post, baked chickens are a stable on my table.  I could eat chicken seven days a week with nothing but a pinch of salt and be perfectly content.  The husband, however, gets real tired of poultry, real fast.  So I learned a few ways to season up a bird to keep it feeling fresh for the rest of the family.  I came across a creamy mushroom herb sauce that called for all the tasties - namely half & half and a stick of butter.  It was a lot of calories to burden an otherwise healthy bird with, so I took it upon myself to make a trimmed down version, safe(r) for the dieting household.  P.S. - Substitute real half & half and use a whole stick of butter in place of the reduced butter and olive oil for the original recipe.

Reduced Fat Creamy Mushroom-Herb Sauce

Difficulty: Easy-Medium.  Have everything prepped before you even start melting your butter.
Time: 10 to 15 minutes - tops - of cooking.  Can be a decent amount of prep time chopping everything.
Serves: 4-6, depending upon amount of topping.
Requires: Nothing

• 1 tbsp reduced calorie butter
• 1 cup fat-free half & half (Land-O-Lakes is the only company I know who makes it)
• 1-3 tbsp of olive oil - you'll be eyeball-ing this, so don't measure out
• 1 tbsp of fresh herbs, cut small (Thyme is really really good.  In the pictures, I made it using 3/4 thyme and 1/4 rosemary) OR 1 tsp dried herbs
• 1 tbsp of parsley, chopped small (Easier to snip into bits with kitchen shears) OR 1 tsp dried parsley flakes
• 1 tbsp of shallot, finely chopped (You can sub normal onion or green onion, but the shallot is a nice touch to the recipe)
• 1 cup of mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp flour
• Salt/pepper
• Optional - 1 tbsp white wine (I always use non-alcoholic)

1. Start by melting the butter in a pan over medium-high heat.  Add the mushrooms and shallots and cook till nicely browned.  Make sure not to overcrowd your pan; your mushrooms will steam and won't cook up as nicely.
    
2. This next step needs to be done in a bit of a hurry, so get your 1 tbsp of flour in one hand, have the olive oil standing by, and keep the spoon firmly in the other hand.  Dump on the flour and start stirring.  Slowly add the oil just until there's enough for the flour to sort of melt away into a thick paste with no clumps of pure flour.  Add your herbs.  I tried to show what the flour compound should look like in the image below, hope it's clear enough.
   
3. Slowly add in the half & half and the tbsp of wine.  Cook to desired thickness, season to taste, and serve immediately.  This stuff continues to thicken (and thicken and thicken), so make sure everything else is ready to go before you whip this sauce up.