Spinach and Marinated Tempeh, Steamed Fingerling Potatoes with Lemon Olive Oil

I had the idea to marinating thinly sliced tempeh in an organic Baja Lime marinade, like I do with lime-seitan sticks, and making a kind of spinach salad. I didn't expect the tempeh to pick up as much of the marinade flavor as the seitan does (I was right).

Well, I gave it a try and my wife and I enjoyed the result. I mistakenly thought that my wife prefers spinach at least steamed but not raw, and ended up with a dish that was more tempeh than spinach, but that was fine. I started my steamer going with fingerling potatoes; they took about 20-25 minutes to be tender enough to allow a fork's tines to penetrate with little resistance to the center. About 5 minutes before they were done, I put in organic baby spinach.

I had cut tempeh into small and thin pieces and had them marinating for over a half hour. I also cut in large pieces (so they could easily be fished out at the end) hot red pepper, which I added inside down, to the marinating tempeh. Periodically, I stirred the mixture and pressed down on the pepper pieces to get the capsaicin and flavor out.

In my cast iron pan, I quickly browned pine nuts over low heat - watch out as they quickly go from a pleasantly done brown to burnt! I removed them then added oil. I have been interested in using more flavored oils, like the lemon olive oil that I used in the artichoke anniversary dinner a few weeks back, so yesterday purchased a nice lemon olive oil where the lemons and olives are pressed together, rather than the lemons' infusing the extra virgin olive oil. I used this oil (it smelled good and tasted good - but when the bottle is over, I'm going to buy a more expensive Meyer lemon olive oil) to briefly saute the tempeh, leaving behind any non-absorbed marinade, and coarsely chopped red onion.

I put the spinach and then tempeh into a bowl, mixed in seasonings like Kermit's Fresh Lime and Datil Pepper, the browned pine nuts, and freshly picked oregano leaves from my garden, and served. I cut slits into the potatoes and added a little bit of the lemon oil along with salt and pepper. I also served two kinds of heirloom tomatoes.

We enjoyed the meal! I'd like to try this again more like my original vision of a salad with raw spinach. Or I might steam the spinach but use the lime-seitan sticks that we love so instead of tempeh.