Last minute dinner... plus BONUS! hidden veggies of course

We all have those "how the heck did it get to be dinner time already" days, and this was one of mine.  Fussy teething baby, no nap, no time for mama to do anything, then took REALLY LONG walk to keep baby happy (plus, yay! extra walking for me and the dog too!), and all of a sudden my research team was home!

So what to do for dinner?  Burritos are my favorite quick dinner, but we were out of tortillas and green chili.  So I pulled this out of the cupboard:

I am not a fan of meals-from-a-box, but it was on sale, so I bought it for a day just like today.  Anyway, I also had some acorn squash that I had baked, but not pureed... I thought I might be able to hide it with all the different textures of beans and rice.  Here you can see how not smooth the squash is:

I followed the directions on the bag and added the squash with about 5 minutes left to boil.  I measured out one up of squash, but as I was adding it, it seemed like there might be chunks of squash which wouldn't be very hidden.  So I chickened out and only added half a cup.

Also at this point I added half a U of sausage.  You know those U sausages?  

Here's how it looked:
 

At this point, my research team said "Hey, what are you taking pictures of?"  I didn't want him to know that I was hiding veggies (although I think he is smart enough to know that if pictures are being taken in the kitchen that means hidden veggies...) so I say "My foot."  And I get back to putting dinner together.

Well, he keeps bugging me about why I am taking pictures, and I keep side stepping the question, and he gets more and more curious.  Finally, he ends up with the camera, and looks at the pictures!  So I told him about the squash that was going to be in the beans and rice.  So much for trying to make him guess what the hidden veggie was!  That is my favorite dinner game:  guess the hidden veggie.  Oh well, next time.

I cut up some other veggies to eat, and decided that since it was a little spicy, some avocado would be good with it.  Here is a picture of my bowl:

My research team thought it was weird with the avocado, but get this:  during dinner I asked him what he thought of the meal.  Here's how it went:

Me:                     "Sooo... what do you think of dinner?"
Research Team:   "I love these beans and rice meals.  This is my kind of meal."
Me:                     "No, I mean what about the squash?"
Research Team:   "What squash?"

No joke, after all that pestering about the picture taking, and the stealing of the camera, he COMPLETELY forgot about it and didn't notice anything squashy in the rice.  :)  Awesome.

So, I did notice some squash pieces, but all in all (obviously) it was pretty hidden!  And tasty!  I am still going to try and have puree to hide, but it's good to know that in a pinch I can maybe hide some other non-pureed veggies.

Also, I think this is a pretty classic example of how some hidden veggies can make a out-of-the-box-last-minute-meal a little better for us.

On a side note:  I think my research team has taken my hidden veggie idea and reversed it.  He is hiding fatty foods in our veggies!   See?  ;)