Portabella and Kale Pizza with Garlic Sauce

Everyone loves pizza!

Okay, maybe not everybody, but a lot of people love it...and in our house, pizza is an all time favorite dish. 

This time around, however, I wanted to try a little something different instead of the usual go-to meal of pepperoni or sausage and mushroom pizza.

While searching for "vegetarian" pizza recipes online (I know, I know...some might read that and think I've become a vegetarian...but I haven't. I just wanted our family to try something different, remember?), I stumbled across this one. 

Here are the ingredients we used to make our pizza because it varies a bit from the original source- although it is just as delicious:

Ingredients

• a few garlic cloves (we used 3)
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2-3 tablespoons of butter
• salt 
• 2 large portabella mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 3 cup torn kale leaves (not tightly packed!)
• About 10 oz. pizza dough, rolled into 13-inch circle (or less dough for a thinner crust, more for thicker)
• 1 cup of cheese (we used Murray's Robiola Bosina)

**Note about the cheese: A variety of cheeses would work for this recipe. We happened to be shopping at our grocery store for the ingredients the day before making our pizza and they had a few samples out of some cheeses to try. My girls fell in love with the Robiola Bosina (which I've never heard of before in my life) and it was half off, so we bought it and it worked quite well with the rest of the ingredients we used for this recipe. It's a type of brie cheese and I would recommend it- especially if it's on sale!!

To make the pizza, we followed the directions on the dough bag for how to roll and cook the dough. Just make sure to use a generous amount of flour. ;) 

My girls put some olive oil on the dough before putting the rest of the ingredients on the pizza.
I also used some of the olive oil along with the garlic to cook the mushrooms and the kale in a pan- and I added a couple table spoons of butter to the mix for some extra taste. Yum!!

We topped the pizza with some cheese squares and it was ready to bake!

And my youngest really loved eating the cooked kale. 

Who knew?! ;)

Once it was done baking, we ate it for dinner along with some fruit.

I have to say that we really enjoyed this pizza- making it and eating it. 

We will definitely be making one again!!! 

Hazelnut Frosting with Chocolate Cupcakes

Well, if you know me at all, then it should come as no surprise that I love to bake. I also like to get my kids in on the process and they really love it- especially when they get to lick the frosting bowl clean after all of the cupcakes are baked and frosted! Do yours ever do that? 
All of my kids have a sweet tooth (yes, that includes the little guy)- I guess you can say they are just like their momma who absolutely loves anything with sugar! ;)

Anywho, this recipe isn't a new one. I found it through a talented blogger named Dear Lillie. 
What I liked about this recipe when I first saw it was the simplicity of it. There aren't that many ingredients to start, which keeps everything down to a reasonable cost. Not only that, the recipe calls for Hazelnut spread (a.k.a.- Nutella)- in my book, you cannot go wrong with a recipe that calls for that stuff!!!

So here are the ingredients you need to make the frosting:

1 cup of butter, softened by not melted

1 cup hazelnut spread 

2 tsp. vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar

2-4 tsp. heavy cream (if you don't have any you can use milk)

First beat the butter and hazelnut spread together then add vanilla. After that, mix in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Add the heavy cream as necessary until you get the right consistency. 

And that's it as far as the frosting goes!

To make the cupcakes, I just used a store bought box and followed the directions. 

Once the cupcakes were cooled, we used a spoon to add the frosting to them- nothing fancy- and then added a few mini chocolate chips to garnish the top because, you know, they needed more chocolate!!

And just like that, they are done and you have some deliciously good cupcakes. I'm serious guys! These are some of the best (mostly because of the hazelnut frosting on the top)!

Let me know if you try them.

We happen to think they are wonderful- in fact, so much so that we have made them twice!!  :)