Berry Sauce will make meal a stand out

This summer I found myself in a lesser-known province of Canada, Saskatchewan, sampling all sorts of regional dishes courtesy of the Canola Information group (Canada is one of the largest canola oil producers). It was such a nice tour of the area that one fine meal seemed to run right into the next – a far cry from my usual life as a working mother of two.

One meal stood out to me, and that sunny outdoor lunch featured grilled elk topped with a Saskatoon Berry Sauce. As I was enjoying the sauce, I thought it would go great with a nicely broiled or grilled filet mignon.

The chef was kind enough to share his signature recipe and confessed right away that a lot of butter and time went into the sauce. I knew I could deal with the butter issue, but wasn’t so sure about the time. Turns out, it wasn’t too bad to make (a little over 30 minutes) and using less butter worked out just fine. I used 2 tablespoons of whipped butter instead of 8 tablespoons of stick butter. The tricks were decreasing the red wine vinegar (the flavor is stronger when there is less butter to help balance it) and adding a bit more chicken broth (and I used condensed or double strength to punch up the flavor.) Saskatoon berries were used in the original recipe (native to the province), but I opted for something I knew could be in all of our freezers year-round – blueberries. Pick the petite ones if you can to mimic the size of the Saskatoon berries.

Original recipe contains 176 calories, 12 grams fat, and 7.2 grams saturated fat and 31 milligrams cholesterol per serving of sauce.

Berry Sauce for Beef

3/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion (such as Vidalia or Walla Walla)

1/2 cup firmly packed blueberries (fresh or frozen)

1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1 cup red wine (Merlot or similar works great)

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1 1/2 cup chicken broth (condensed or double strength)

2 tablespoons whipped butter (less fat margarine can be substituted)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Add onion to a medium nonstick saucepan and cook over medium-high heat for about 2 minutes, stirring often. Then add blueberries and brown sugar and continue to cook, letting it caramelize, for about 3 minutes more (stirring often).

Reduce heat to medium and add the wine, vinegar, and chicken broth. Continue to cook until it reduces to about half the original amount (around 1 1/2 cups). This takes about 25 to 30 minutes.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the whipped butter. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve on top or on the side of broiled or grilled filet mignon. (It would probably work well with elk, venison or pork if you would rather).

Yield: 8 servings of sauce

Nutrition per serving of sauce: 93 calories, 2.4 grams fat (1.3 grams saturated, 23 percent fat calories), 2.2 grams protein, 11.5 grams carbohydrate, 6 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 272 milligrams sodium.

Weight Watchers Points = 2