Between the Layers | Design Guide Series
SUBSCRIBE
Lifestyle

An Easy Spring Appetizer You Can Whip Up in a Flash

Crudité Board with Green Goddess Dip

For spring and summer dinners, we love to create meals out of yummy, snack-filled platters. We try to make it casual and relaxed, where everyone can help themselves. Read below to see how to create a delicious and beautiful appetizer: a crudité platter with the easiest green goddess dressing (ok, I cheated a little).

Sometimes during the spring and summer months, Derrick and I will just whip up something like this crudité board to graze on. Accompany it with a crusty baguette and a cheese board and voilà, you have yourselves a dinner!

Photography: Zee Wendell

I’ve followed Annie Campbell, an LA-based party planner and event designer (she’s actually from Oregon!) for a while now. I love to see all the beautiful parties she organizes! They’re always gorgeous, colorful, and of course — the food looks delicious. So, when I saw this post on Pinterest, I read her tips and tricks on how to create a pretty board like this, and loved how it was different from your typical vegetable platter!

The Secret to a Beautiful Appetizer

The secret is to gather healthy, organic vegetables such as golden cauliflower. I’ve never tried this before, but its soooo good! It  tastes similar to your tried-and-true white cauliflower, just prettier ?. Choose your favorite greens, and add other pretty veggies like radishes, pea pods and mini carrots. Then just slice and arrange in “layers” starting with one veggie, then layering slices of another veggie on top, and so forth.

As Annie says, “The platter matters”… it’s all about the presentation!” She often uses wood boards to display her goodies, and I just love this idea. A cool, vintage wood board is so versatile — we use ours ALLLLL the time for various things like cheese, small desserts or cookies, or sliced bread and butter. I definitely recommend one.

CLOUZ HOUZ TIP: Buy vegetables with the stems still attached. I found mini carrots with the stems, and then I just cut off the green part almost all the way, but left some on for a really organic and pretty touch.

Green Goddess Dressing

A green goddess dip/dressing is one of my faves for this appetizer meal. I cheated a bit and bought a green goddess dressing from Whole Foods. I added it to sour cream with chopped fresh dill, and it was deeeelish. Not everything has to be homemade to taste good! So, wherever and whenever I can cut corners, I will. It makes our lives easier.

Photography: Zee Wendell

Give this a try and graze till your heart’s content. Pour yourself a glass of Rosé, or mix up the Chill Pill. Then, sit outside to enjoy your evening knowing dinner is ready!

Join the Conversation

get inspired
#clouzhouz
follow along
@clouz_houz
One thing I wish we talked about more: you’re allowed to change direction.

At 20, I thought by this point in life I’d have everything figured out. Very funny. Turns out some of the best decisions I’ve made came after plans changed, things got uncomfortable, and I had absolutely no idea what was next. There’s something really freeing about getting older and caring a little less about what your life is supposed to look like.

So if you’ve been quietly thinking about doing the thing, changing the thing, starting the thing... maybe this is your nudge. You don’t need to have it all figured out first. 

I certainly didn’t. Thanks for following along on our journey as I figure out this little thing called life. The support, honest conversations, and encouragement from this community mean more to me than you probably realize.
This was such a strange full-circle moment. I could immediately remember being 30 years old, standing in those rooms with Derrick and trying to figure out what the heck we were doing!! We had ideas. We weren’t afraid of a project. I had loved design long before it became my career. But I didn’t have a process yet.

Now, after 15 years of designing homes for other people, I can see exactly what I was missing: a way to make the decisions as a whole instead of one at a time (and on my own).

That’s probably why The Design Suite feels so personal to me. It’s built for someone who reminds me a lot of myself back then—the homeowner who appreciates beautiful spaces, is happy to execute, but wants an experienced design team to establish the vision and work through the decisions before the orders are placed and the contractor needs answers.

And you don’t have to do it all tomorrow. Having the plan means you can implement it at the pace that makes sense for you. I would’ve loved to have that roadmap in this little Portland house.

If you’re standing in your own version of it right now, wondering where to begin, I’d love to hear about it.
🤎 Send me a message or head to the link in our bio to inquire about The Design Suite.
September always does something to my design brain.
These are 5 things I can’t stop pinning right now as we head into fall. Some were already working into our own home and some are showing up in client projects.

I’m going much deeper on all five in today’s Design Board Pinnings—how I’d actually use them, the ideas I’m saving, pieces I’ve sourced + a few things we’re doing at Sixth Street.

It lands in inboxes later today. Comment ‘LIST’ (or link in bio) and I’ll send you the link to subscribe so you don’t miss it.