Cumin Overload

In an effort to learn to cook and season things well, you have to learn from failure. Lots and lots of failure. For example, burned garlic:

I set the heat under my cast iron pan to medium-high heat, just like the recipe called for. I pressed the garlic through the press into the pan, looked away to clean out the press for the next garlic cloves, looked back at the pan, and panicked. All in a matter of, I don't know...5 seconds? I took a deep breath, scraped out the ruined garlic, took the pan off of the heat, and tucked my little lesson into the back of my head for next time. Cast iron gets hot. Fast. Oddly enough, I felt I knew that already though and  my garlic still burned.

Onto the next lesson. By the way, I followed this recipe:

http://fitmencook.com/turkey-meatballs-wilted-spinach/

The recipe called for six ounces of turkey. Since I was cooking for two, I used 16 ounces instead. I  doubled the amount of seasoning used for the six ounces of turkey in the recipe, and worried that it would be under-seasoned because my turkey was more than double what the recipe called for. I would be wrong about the seasoning, but more on that later. Here are the turkey meatballs, browning in the pan: 

After browning, I threw some fresh spinach on top, covered the pan with aluminum foil, and threw it in the oven for six minutes. I toasted my pine nuts in the oven with the turkey. The timer went off, out it came, and I plated the food, adding some pico de gallo and the toasted pine nuts. Let me tell you something. It smelled phenomenal. Like, super good. Like, so good that I silently cheered and fist-pumped in my head because I was pretty sure I nailed the recipe.

I tasted a meatball before taking Ken his plate, just to be sure. My heart dropped. Way too much cumin and cayenne pepper. Usually when I over-season, the food is inedible. I took Ken his food and gave fair warning, apologizing in advance that we were going to have to go hungry. To my surprise, he loved it! He loves cumin and he loves cayenne pepper. He wasn't sure about it at first, but kept praising how good it was. He even asked to eat the half that I was saving to put in my eggs the next morning. I felt like he was being nice but you have to know that Ken would be the first to say if it wasn't good. 

I'd like to try the recipe again, with less cumin and cayenne pepper, and less cook time. I overcooked the meatballs and they were a bit dry. Other than that, this recipe was so easy, so fast, and so healthy. I would totally recommend making this, but seasoning it to your liking with spices that you prefer. I also recommend not burning your garlic.