Each November, I begin planning the menus for the upcoming holiday season with my mom and grandma. It’s been a long-standing tradition of ours to cook together on the holidays and we love planning as much as we can in advance. Over the years, aside from realizing my love for cooking, I’ve also acknowledged that I love compiling beautiful crudité and charcuterie boards for hosting. It’s also one of my favorite things to make when hosting friends and family. It’s always a huge hit, and I have the best time designing these boards with vegetables cut in different thicknesses paired with unique dips (like beet and ricotta hummus). While crudité platters look fancy, they’re quite simple to create, if you have the right tools.. This is where the secret of how I make crudité boards in a snap comes in: the Oxo Good-Grip Hand-Held Mandoline.
While the mandoline itself may look like nothing special, trust me it is. It arrives with unique features that truly distinguish it from other mandolines that I’ve used in the past. The three different thicknesses allow me to cut my vegetables from paper-thin to just the right thickness without injuring myself due to the non-slip handle, knob, and foot. When using it, I usually hook it directly onto a bowl and slice right over it, but I’ve used it directly on a cutting board and plate too. The window within the mandoline shows what you're slicing below, so you can easily see if your produce is the way you want it. However, the best part is that it’s super easy to clean. All I do is rinse it off and throw it into the dishwasher.
Aside from using it for my crudité platters, I also love using it daily to cut vegetables for different dishes, soups, and salads along with fruits for pies and tarts. Friends of mine have used it to julienne vegetables, but I haven’t tried that yet. All in all, if you’re someone who loves hosting or just loves making crudité platters for Sunday night hangouts, this mandoline is for you.
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