Scrolling through Pinterest for hours feels like a valuable use of my time. And that is especially the case when I have other important things to be doing. Oh, how I can gayly fritter away hours adding to my ‘wedding’ and ‘destination’ boards…but my favourite board of all is the ‘food' board. I’m sure its my most pinned-to board out of the lot, and it’s when I was scrolling through various recipes I came across the phenomenon of the Charcuterie Board. Never had I seen such pretty and dainty spreads of food! Now, Really don’t have anything on some of the boards on Pinterest, but this is how I make a charcuterie board for under £20.
What I love about a charcuterie board [which is basically a fancy cheese, meat and fruit board] is that there’s next-to-no washing up to be done afterwards. Except for say; one knife and a chopping board or two. All you need is some kind of serving platter - I just use my biggest wooden chopping board - and your ingredients and you’re basically done. That’s also a great thing about a charcuterie board; it’s all generally fresh and ready-to-eat stuff. All you need to do is a bit of slicing and pretty arranging. And pouring some wine, of course!
Another fab thing about a lunch, dinner or supper like this, is that you can essentially choose whatever you fancy. Massive shoutout to those who have mastered the breakfast charcuterie board - that’s next on my to-do list! I decided that instead of cooking a whole meal this evening, I’d like to do this instead and headed to my favourite place on earth; LIDL this morning. So, let’s have a look at my ingredients.
My receipt total is £20.22. My budget was £20, but I decided on a slightly nicer wine, a Comté Tolosan French Malbec, so sue me! I wanted to set myself a budget to see how much I could get, and what kind of variety of lovely fresh bits I could choose.
As it was intended to be our dinner, I wanted to be quite carb-heavy, so I picked up sweet potato fries, two demi baguettes, black pepper and sea salt crackers and a goat’s cheese and pesto focaccia. Cheese-wise, I went for the ol’ faithfuls; gouda, camembert [to bake in the oven for melty deliciousness] and brie. I chose a Spanish tapas meats selection and then a random pack of Brunswick ham because this charcuterie board seems disloyal to any country specifically. This is the European Union charcuterie board, if you will. For fruitiness, I went with a pink apple, a conference pear, both just to slice up, and then a punnet of mixed grapes so no one’s crying about not having the colour grape they wanted. I also grabbed some cherry tomatoes which I won’t eat and some sun-dried tomatoes which I definitely will eat. And finally, a jar of caramelised red onion chutney which is perfect on bread or crackers with the cheese.
I really love how it turned out, and despite it not looking like loooooads of food in my shopping basket initially, it was a really nice and satisfying, yet ‘picky’ dinner. It felt like a bit of a picnic in our living room. And of course, there’s a fair bit of leftovers knocking about in the fridge now, so that’ll be lunch for a couple of days. I think this is a great idea for summer dinners - especially because I’ve been too hot to cook and since I never even want to wash a dish at the best of times. It makes me feel a bit European and like I’m on holiday which is so so so valuable since most of us still aren’t able to travel.
So there we bloody go, I’m pleased as punch and a nice level of full considering the stifling heat at the moment. I’m also feeling quite proud as this was literally more fruit than I’ve eaten in the last like… 6 months. I just feel much more inclined to eat fresh fruit and veg if it’s laid out like this, and I feel better for it. It’s also extremely insta-worthy. I’d love to attempt a breakfast one next time, so that’s one to look out for!
Have you ever experimented with a charcuterie board? What kind of things would you put on yours?
Lots of love,
Jasmine x
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