How To Make A Grazing Platter | Ultimate Grazing Board For The Autumn Harvest

Hello grazers, welcome to Life's A Grazing. Today I'm going to be making this board. I'm having a small family get together so it's just something to nibble at. So this board is going to be really popular with cheese, meat and seasonal fruit lovers so let's get on with it. So first of all when I'm doing a board the first thing I want to do and the first thing I start with is usually the crackers. So I've added these black pepper savoury crackers which are really so tasty. So I've added some good old cream crackers, everyone loves a cream cracker. I've also got a few of these sweet chilli flatbread thins which are quite tasty. Some of these here. Lovely chutney which is red pepper. I'm just going to add this here. So what we've done today is a little pumpkin and we've hollowed it out. So what I'm going to do with this is add the hummus to this just to give it a little bit of a different twist. So with the hummus you can use homemade hummus or you can just buy some shop bought one. So there you go, the lid does fit on perfectly so when you want to have a little nibble just lift it off and voila, the hummus is underneath. So next we've got some mini pickled onions and olives, just add this to the board. Now you cheese lovers. So today we're going to be using a lovely piece of french brie, some Wensleydale with cranberries, some lovely soft cheese with pineapple, paprika and almonds, the best, Scottish cheddar, manchengo and emmental. Right we'll just put some of this here. Love the different texture and little bumps in the surface of that cheese, gives it a nice little bit of difference. So this one here we're going to not leave it like that, we're actually just going to do a really nice little pattern. It's so simple. So backwards and forwards, this one like that, next one, push them together and voila. Just going to add this here. Wensleydale can just sit here perfectly. I love Wensleydale because it's got lovely colours going through it, especially with cranberries this time of year, it's just beautiful. So now for some cream cheese, just pop that there. As you can see when I'm putting the cheese on the board I do move it around sometimes and just switch places, it's just to make sure that you get the right look of the board. So now for the meat. So the meat we're using today is some lovely cooked ham slices, some hot pepperoni just to give a little bit of spice, some serrano ham, melano salami, chorizo. So now to display this. So with the ham I'm just going to actually roughly cut it, like break it in half, fold it and just kind of roughly fold it so that it's just a little bit of texture when it's sat on the plate. There you go, just gives it a little bit more of texture. So we'll just add this over here I think. When you're working with ham it can be a bit temperamental so just bear with it. So when you've got the ham just kind of like ruffle it backwards and forwards just so it gives a little bit more texture. Again just very delicately, don't worry too much about it. So now for the pepperoni. So what I'm going to do today is literally just fold it into quarters but I'm going to put it back to front and you'll see why in a second. So that's what it looks like when it's all folded backwards and forwards. I'm going to start from here and then just make them go a little bit further and fan them a little bit and fold them a little bit so that they go from one space to the other. It's quite nice because it makes it flow nicely. This here I'm just going to roll. I'm going to make a little bit of a salami rose, just a little bit. What I'm going to do, I'm going to make another video to show you exactly how to do a salami rose. So I've just decided to move the pepperoni into another direction because I quite like my boards coming from the centre out the way. So as you can see you've got the crackers going this way, you've got the meat going this way and just so there's a little bit of kind of rhythm to it. So now we're just going to add some grapes. Sometimes you put grapes on the platter or the board or table or whatever and you always find it's really like annoying gaps so I just add individual grapes to the gaps to make the whole bunch look so much fuller. Oops, runaway grape. Okay so now I'm going to use a pear and to display the pear I've just kind of chopped it that way and then I've chopped the bottom off so it's flat and I'm just going to sit it on the back of the board. So now I'm going to use some kiwis just to add a little bit of greenery, so one there and one there. I've also got some lovely oranges just to give that lovely pop of orange. Bear in mind where you pop the orange because you don't want to sit it next to anything that's going to become really soggy or anything. Then we've got some apple and actually just I've cut this as you can see I've cut this in slices. Now do be careful with apples obviously because they do go brown so what I find is if you keep it kind of more or less in its you know next to each other it saves the the oxidisation of the fruit. So next we've got some pomegranate which is beautifully red and juicy this time of year I've cut it into quarters so that you can stack it and each person can kind of pick a piece out and get the seeds out themselves so there's no need to mess around. I'm just going to put some of this here. Remember to use your fruit you know to break up colours you know if it's quite bland or beige just use your fruit to kind of add a pop of colour It doesn't matter too much if it's kind of on top of another piece of fruit just adds a little bit of layering. Then we've got some radishes. I'm going to add some radishes just here and I'll just slice these ones so however you want to display them it's totally up to you. Radishes are quite forgiving so it doesn't need to be in a set pattern or anything although try not to put them too flat because you can get too much of the white of the radish otherwise but other than that they're quite good. So it is the fall and we're using these seasonal fruits so next we have blackberries lovely and juicy with a little bit of sharpness just how I love it. I'm just going to pop some here not too many because you've already got the red and that sort of colour there another little pop of colour and they're really good at just filling up spaces with cherry tomatoes. I've also got some breadsticks here I'm just going to put those there I've put them near the hummus obviously you can just dip in and all that yumminess. So next I've got some dark chocolate I often find that when I put figs on a board they're one of the first things to get snapped up it's like everyone just makes a total beeline for the figs doesn't matter about anything else there's never enough figs. Now I'm going to add some peanuts so we'll put some nuts here and this is where the board starts to really kind of come together it's quite nice to see it's just you know all the little spaces don't have to fill up all the spaces but so we've got peanuts not forgetting some pretzels. These mixed nuts are beautiful because they have like different colours and different textures so you can just add pretzels are quite good to break up sharp edges you know like down the edge of the board. Now my favourite thing is pumpkin seeds just fill them in the very tiny gaps a little bit of cheese just to break up the blandness of the so now I'm going to add some edible rose petals now this is how I finish my boards whenever I make them just sprinkle them here a few here just breaks it up nicely you can get edible rose petals on amazon and I'll leave links below I absolutely love them they just give this lovely lovely softness to a board I don't know about you but I think it looks amazing now my favourite thing as well adding to a board is flowers chrysanthemums are around this time of year also apparently they're an edible flower so it's okay it's food safe to use which is brilliant also little carnations are food safe I still have them in my garden this time of year so you can add those as well right normally I would use rosemary but this time I'm actually going to use some red currants because red currants are very seasonal so so there's a lovely seasonal grazing board for you and your family to enjoy I hope you enjoy this a grazing life see you next time grazers