Basic Brown Sauce

I decided to make the "Basic Brown Sauce" (p. 545) as it was suggested as a topping for the Black Bean and Bulgur Loaf (see review above).  I was thinking this would be like gravy, and I could use it to top not only the loaf, but mashed potatoes as well.  It is actually better than gravy!  It is basically a broth flavored with fresh vegetables, wine, herbs, and spices, thickened with flour, cooked on the stove top to blend and deepen the flavors, then pureed in a blender. What a dynamite combination of flavors!  And it came to me that this was really like a white sauce, only brown.  Duh!  Basic Brown Sauce is the name of the recipe, right?  I think this sauce would be good on all kinds of things, such as potatoes, rice, veggie burgers, biscuits, and anywhere else you would use gravy.

The recipe did call for 2 tablespoons of olive oil, which seemed to me would add a dimension and richness to the overall sauce.  I thought I would use an equal amount of tahini instead of the oil, and no sooner did I make my mind up to do just that, than I saw this suggested in a side bar to the recipe.  Because of the way the flour was supposed to be incorporated into the oil, I had to rearrange the way everything came together since I used tahini instead.  This caused no problems.  The recipe also called for all-purpose flour (white), but I used whole wheat pastry flour in place of that.  So, I was able to stick to both my criteria - no oil and only whole grain products.