What is a Mandolin Vegetable Slicer?

Mandolin slicers are a great kitchen tool to create a more professional look to your sliced vegetables. Whether you are cooking for your family, or entertaining, your display will be much more appealing to all of your dinner guests!

Many professional cooks use a much more expensive version of this kitchen tool. However, the home cook can find a reasonably priced and user friendly mandoline in almost any store that carries kitchen gadgets. For a long time, I have wanted to purchase one for my kitchen and recently did through a Pampered Chef Home Sales party. I must say that I was very pleased with my investment! So although many mandolin slicers are very similar, I will be specifically referring to the Pampered Chef Ultimate Mandoline that I have.

Some of the more basic mandolins have just one blade. If you select a more deluxe mandolin, it will come with a variety of blades. This is one of the features that I really appreciate. When you have children, creating an inviting plate is one of the best ways to guarantee that the will eat what you serve them! So what types of blades will you find with a deluxe or ultimate mandolin?

Grater: A greater is perfect for shredding vegetables. You can use it to shred potatoes for hash browns or carrots for a salad. You will no longer need that 'knuckle scraper' that you have stashed in a drawer anymore!

Adjustable Slicer: There is a simple slicing tool blade that will slice your vegetables at two different thicknesses. One is very thin and the other leaves a thickness that is about 1/8 of an inch.

Crinkle Cut: The crinkle cut blade is a fun blade to use. It is great for slicing potatoes to make into fries. I sliced an apple with it to show you the fun cut that it makes. My son found it to be great fun to eat!

V Shaped Blade: This gives another great option for adding a bit of character to your vegetable slices.

There are many reasons that one might decide to purchase a mandolin slicer or not. Here are some pros and cons that I have found.

Pros:

• easy to use
• creates uniform slices
• multiple blades allow for a variety
• dishwasher safe makes it easy to clean
• great for other foods such as fruits and cheese

Cons:

• can be expensive
• will not slice soft vegetables or fruits (such as tomatoes)

So as you can see, my list of pros is much longer than my cons. This makes it a win in my book. So what do you think? Would you purchase a mandolin slicer? Let me know in the poll to the right.

Ingredients:

• 2 Granny Smith apples, sliced
• 1 cup of vanilla yogurt
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of honey

Directions:

1. Remove the core of the apple. Then using the V Slicer, slice the apple. Then cut the apple into fourths and set aside.
2. In a small bowl, mix the yogurt, honey, and walnuts. Drizzle the yogurt mixture over the apple slices or serve the yogurt on the side and use it as a dip for the apples.

Ingredients:

• 2 cucumbers
• about 2 oz. of Feta cheese
• 1 small onion (I prefer a red onion)
• 2-3 medium tomatoes
• Spices (I simply used pepper this time but I usually use about a teaspoon of dried oregano)
• About 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and 1 tablespoon of Olive Oil (I really don't measure this but just eyeball it.)

Directions:

1. Slice vegetables and place them in a bowl.
2. Top with Feta cheese and spices.
3. Pour vinegar and oil over the top and serve.

This is a great summer salad for fresh vegetables that are growing in your garden. We often add Kalamata olives to this salad. There is no need to add salt due to the saltiness of the Feta.