Roasted Mushroom Kale Pizza

Now the fall is here, its time to start using that oven again. I don’t like to bake much in the summer, its just too hot. But come this time of year, I can’t wait to start baking, roasting, braising, and broiling (you will notice this theme in the recipes to come).

FarmLink usually has kale and mushrooms available on the site all year, so this Roasted Mushroom Kale Pizza recipe from Half Baked Harvest looked really good. And please go visit the original recipe. Her photographs are so amazing.

This recipe ticked all the boxes: relatively simple, main ingredients available on the site, sounded delicious. The only box it didn’t tick was slow-cooker friendly, so I couldn’t take it into work for the staff. They were disappointed but forgiving. I served them Metallica Beans instead and they forgave me.

I have friends that make pizza with homemade dough every Friday evening. They can do it from memory and play with proportions and add a little of this and some of that. I am not that person. Dough of any kind makes me nervous. Baking isn’t usually conducive to “eyeballing” they way cooking is, so I stuck to the recipe for the dough (she has that with a different pizza recipe)

The recipe calls for half a pound of pizza dough. Maybe I am just wimpy about getting the crust thin, but this was a very small pizza with a LOT of extra toppings left over when assembled as written. So I would recommend having a pound of pizza dough so you can play with how big and how thin you would like to make it. You can also always buy premade dough. We’ll never tell.

I used the Mycopia Chef’s Sampler 8oz pack for the wild mushrooms. The smaller mushrooms didn’t need much more than the bottoms trimmed off. The trumpets I sliced to make everything about even.

Mycopia Chef’s Sampler mushrooms

The mushrooms weren’t precooked in her recipe. I like to caramelize things to bring out that extra boost of flavor so I have them a quick sauté in butter and salt before combining them with the kale. It is an extra step and an extra pan, but I definitely think its worth it. Massage your kale while the mushrooms brown, they can skip that step. I have never massaged mushrooms in my life and I have no desire to get that intimate with them.

The topping mix came together quickly and easily. Don’t skip the massaging step. It helps break down the fibers, makes the kale easier to chew, and really infuses the flavors.

I had a lot of trouble rolling out the dough. To get it the right size it was so think it was breaking and ripping. So then I tried pulling it, and the rolling it again. After some swearing and thoughts of abandoning it for store bought dough I made a rectangle that I thought would work. This experience did not change my nervous outlook on dough.

The recipe said the fig jam was optional. Since I don’t usually keep fig jam in my pantry I decided to just skip it. If you try it, let me know in the comments, I’d love to know if you liked it.

Overall this is a very good recipe – tasty flavors and other than my struggles with the dough, not too difficult. The crust was a little soggy for my taste. But I think if you could wrestle this onto a stone that would make it crispier. And we all agreed that it needed more than the 3oz of feta. I put about 4oz on, but I would have liked more.

I ended up putting on half of the mixture I made. More would have swamped the pizza. I saved the extra for bruschetta or crostini later when I don’t feel like cooking.

Hope you enjoy!

Roasted Mushroom and Kale Pizza

• Servings: 4
• Time: 35 minutes (not including making crust
• Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients

• 2 cups Tuscan Kale, shredded or chpped
• 8 ounces Chef’s Sampler mushrooms, chopped to like sizes
• 2 TBLS butter
• 2 cloves garlic, grated or pressed
• 2 TBLS extra virgin olive oil
• 2 TBLS balsamic vinegar
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 1 TBLS dried thyme leaves
• 1 pound pizza dough (you might not use all of it, but it will give you room to play)
• 1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes
• 6oz crumbled feta cheese
• 1 cup havarti cheese, shredded
• 1 TBLS salted butter, thinkly sliced into 3 pieces

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Grease a large baking sheet with olive oil.

Melt the butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the shopped mushrooms and cook until brown, about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the kale, garlic, olive oil, balsamic, vinegar, thyme, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Massage the kale with your hands for 1 minute.

Add the browned mushrooms to the kale mixture and stir to combine.

On a lightly floured surface, push/roll the dough out until it is pretty thin (about a 10-12 inch circle). Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet.

Sprinkle the pizza with crumbled feta, crushed red pepper, and then layer the kale and mushroom mixture over the cheese. Top with havarti and the sliced butter.

Transfer to the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until crust is golden and the cheese has melted

Adapted from Roasted Mushroom Kale Pizza from Half Baked Harvest