Magic Act!

A good magician uses sleight of hand and distractions to pull off the perfect magic trick.  A good mom can do the same thing with dinner.  For one of our dinners that we had this week, we made fish tacos.  We use frozen fish fillets (tortilla lime crusted tilapia is one of our favorites) and cook them according to the instructions.   We then wrap them either in corn tortillas (for the adults) or a flour tortilla (which right now is the only kind the boy likes). We like to add different things to our tacos.  My husband and I like salsa and cheese and some avocados.  The boy likes….cheese.  But, not too much cheese.  He does NOT like it when a little of the cheese grease drips out of the sides of his taco. 

I have been reading a lot about pureeing veggies and adding (hiding) them in food.  I have done it once successfully with the cauliflower in the mac and cheese, but the question here was could I make it fly past the boy’s radar once again?  So, for his fish taco, I mixed together a ¼ cup of pureed butternut squash with a ¼ cup of shredded cheddar cheese.  Then, my husband put it in the flour tortilla and put the fish on top of it.  The boy likes barbeque sauce, so he added a bit of barbeque sauce in and then folded it up burrito style and heated it in the pan…until the cheese melted.  The boy came to dinner hungry and ate a couple of carrots out of the bowl that was sitting on the table as he was setting the table.  (That act almost caused me to faint right there!)  The boy appeared to be slightly suspicious about what we might be pulling over his eyes…and he looked at his food very carefully.  He took a bite and another and another and before we knew it, he had devoured the whole thing!  He finally started to relax thinking that we hadn’t added anything strange to his meal.  He ate it all.  And he ate a serving of carrots.  Two veggies in one meal!  Yes, it was a team effort and I could not have done it without my lovely assistant (my husband).  I do see many more hidden magical treats in the boy’s future!