Mystery Meal à la Rich

Earlier this week Rich and I celebrated five years together. I've mentioned it here before - but I've been working a lot of hours. So on the day itself, when I got home at 6:30p Rich asked who I was, because his wife is usually at work until 9p. (An exaggeration, yes, but not terribly far from the truth.)

He mentioned he had wanted to make a special dinner, but wasn't sure when I would come home so he hadn't picked up the ingredients. Right then and there I promised that on Friday I would leave work no later than 5:30p and from then on referred to the dinner he was going to make as his "mystery meal."

Man, this guy does not disappoint! I arrived home to him chopping, slicing and dicing in the kitchen. And everything was a surprise. I had no idea what we were having. I asked prodding questions that led nowhere.

Until... our Appetizer:

{fresh coconut}

The coconut was a huge clue - we were revisiting our honeymoon!! (I told you Rich is good!) He made our favorite Tahitian entree, Poisson Cru!

Poisson cru is similar to cevice in that it consists of raw fish, quickly marinated in lime juice to "cook" the fish. Coconut milk is added, along with diced and seeded cucumber, tomatoes, chopped scallions, salt and pepper. Interested in the recipe? Check out this link.

{Rich taking a picture of our meal for his Project 365}

The dish itself was terrific. It was a first attempt and I must hand it to Rich, it was a fantastic replica of our initial poisson cru experiences!

{Lime+Coconut+Fish=Fresh+Simple+Tasty}

{that's me in the background, chowing down}

To go with our French Polynesian meal, we also opened one of the bottles of rum we bought during our visit. {I guess we'd been saving the rum for a special occasion too, because this was the first time we'd opened a bottle.}

{ice, liquer banane, oj}

What a fun way to celebrate love and bring the tropics to us. Great work, babe! ♥