Improv in the kitchen: "yes, sometimes"

I am generally not comfortable going off-recipe in the kitchen. Given my limited kitchen knowledge, I will usually go out and buy the exact ingredients rather than substitute with similar things I have handy, or I'll say no thanks to that recipe and look for another one.

As you may have read, my CSA membership has been encouraging me to be more adventurous with my meals and I've been broadening my horizons. A friend recommended I try this recipe to address the abundance of beets and carrots in my fridge. Some minor adjustments I made were to use cedron (aka beebrush or lemon verbena) instead of parsley because, as I said with chamomile, what the hell else was I supposed to do with it? I also used olive oil instead of "walnut oil" because no.

as if

But the substitution I made that had the largest effect on the outcome was to use a regular knife instead of a mandoline. When I read "Using a mandoline," there was a laugh-out-loud moment, and instead I sliced as thinly as I could, which was not very thin. The resulting salad is a real fork-breaker:

I think a mandoline is a neat thing to own, so I might buy one. I certainly will not be making this dish again until I do.