Editor’s Note:
To see your favorite homecooked meal in the paper, or if you own a local restaurant and would like to participate, email your recipes, along with photos, to food@dominionpost.com or send them to us via Facebook Messenger.
In The Dominion Post’s ongoing Wednesday feature, Quarantine Kitchen, we highlight dishes prepared by readers, staffers and chefs at our local restaurants, in an effort to keep us connected through food.
Today, we focus on a fresh, healthy salad from Terra Cafe, prepared by Chef Lauren Hartman, showcasing area produce and finished with spiced pistachios and chevre cheese.
“Chef Lauren Hartman is proud to showcase one of Terra Café’s most popular dishes: The Roasted Vegetable Salad,” Terra Cafe General Manager Richia Riggleman said in an email. “Bursting with both flavor and color, this salad also highlights the commitment Chef Lauren and Terra Cafe have made in supporting local farms. In the peak of growing season, you will find the spinach, beets, fennel, squash and tomatoes all sourced from our friends at Round Right Farm. Staying true to our mantra: ‘Fresh, local, made from scratch,’ Terra Café has remained committed, even through these trying times, to providing our Morgantown community with healthy, locally sourced food.”
To prepare the salad, Hartman says it’s important to roast the veggies separately and use the best produce you can.
Roasting vegetables is generally a low-and-slow process, and you can find the best methods online for each type you plan to use.
When it comes to replicating the cafe’s popular spiced pistachios, you’ll have to wing it — the exact flavors are a closely guarded secret, to keep them extra craveable.
But if you don’t trust your hand at spicing your own, there are several types of flavored nuts available at the grocery store.
“First we source the freshest greens as the base of the salad, ” she said. “We roast all veggies separately at temperatures ranging from 225-325 [degrees]. Tomatoes being the slowest to roast at the lowest temp. Once completed, we start to arrange a bed of green, then adding the vibrant roasted vegetables. To finish the salad we sprinkle chèvre goat cheese and our secret spiced pistachios. You can use any [spice] blend to your liking at home, to make them your own. At Terra we recommend our house Lemon Vinaigrette dressing to enhance all the best flavors of this salad.”
To get that tangy kick to complement your salad, Hartman shared her vinaigrette recipe.
LEMON VINAIGRETTE DRESSING
-10 ounces of lemon juice
-1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
-1 tablespoon of sugar
-1 shallot
-3 cups of olive oil
-Fresh parsley
-Salt and pepper, to taste
Add first 4 ingredients to food processor.
Emulsify by slowly drizzling olive oil in until desired consistency.
Add parsley, salt, and pepper to taste.
Drizzle over this salad, or any salad you enjoy.
To order
To enjoy food from Terra Cafe itself, the restaurant has curbside pick-up and offers delivery through Grubhub.
Hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday
Phone: 304-554-2233
Current offers
All items are being served to go and can be picked up from the easy drive-up take out window
Health care workers receive 20% off
Serving breakfast all day, along with the regular menu
For Mother’s Day, the restaurant will offer a special family style feature on Friday and Saturday as well as signature cupcakes made especially to celebrate with the family.
Daily/weekly features can be found on social media. Instagram:
@terracafewv and Facebook: @terracafewv
