Recipe Revision

When I am looking for a dinner idea, I often stumble upon fabulous recipes, with fabulous ingredients that I hardly ever have use for and therefore never have on hand. With that in mind, almost every recipe I see, requires a little change up to fit my pantry and limit my grocery list.(Warning, this is going to be a long post!)I've also recently fallen in love (Read: become obsessed with...) a blogger by the pseudonym of The Hungry Mouse. Her name is Jessie Cross and she writes all about food, with helpful step by step photos, her love of meat, and her sidekicks aka dogs. She is extremely knowledgeable about all things edible, leading her to be published in many magazines as well as in her very own cookbook, Slushed! 
My favorite feature on her blog is a protein drop down menu, pick your choice and all recipes are categorized accordingly. Extremely helpful when you only have a pork loin on hand.
Without further ado, here are my recent remakes of her recipes!

The first recipe that appealed to me was her Meat Ragu, found here , to which I soon discovered I had almost no ingredients for, and it was already 5 pm. So, here is my spin off recipe based on her technique and measurements.

1 lb. cavatappi noodles
2 Tbls. butter
3/4 cup kalamata olives, halved
1/2 cup baby bella mushrooms
3 cipollini onions, small dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 Tbls. tomato paste
1/2 cup red wine (I used Merlot)
2 15- oz cans tomato sauce

I followed the instructions for her recipe, except the mushrooms went in before the sauce, and the olives went in about 5 minutes before the last hunk of butter. I was really satisfied with the result and will have to try her original recipe one day!
The second spin off recipe I did wasn't all that different, but it was supremely simple and delicious. I recently found a notable butcher in my area, and immediately purchased some prosciutto upon finding this recipe. (Side note: I paired mine with garlic and shallot brown rice pilaf.)
Here is my version:

12 chicken tenders
12 slices of prosciutto
3 garlic cloves, sliced paper thin
Dried basil
Salt
Pepper 
Follow her cooking instructions. My layering went a bit like this: lay one piece of prosciutto down, place one chicken tender on top, sprinkle with a little salt, a little pepper, and a very small amount of dried basil. Then I laid a row of the extremely thin garlic across the chicken (3 to 4 slices per tender), rolled it up, placed in a glass baking dish with a spritz of cooking spray beforehand. Voila! Was super easy, and extremely flavorful.

I'm cooking another spin off of two of her recipes tonight for Father's Day dinner and will follow up with that (plus a recipe spin off from another food blogger.)

I have followed one of her recipes exactly, which was her homemade meatballs that I made meatball subs with last night- I made a quick homemade pizza sauce for them as well. The meatballs were delicious and tender- I highly recommend!

Do you follow recipes to a "T" or do a remake, like me?
-Rachel