Cooking With Littles
The time when they are so eager to be helpful. So eager to stand on the stool and stir, to crack the egg even though half of it lands on the counter, to press the dough down with their whole body. This is the sacred window — because right now, cooking with you can be the most exciting thing in their world, and that doesn't last forever.
This is when the foundation gets built. Not just the skills, like how to hold a knife, how to taste and adjust, how to turn a pile of vegetables into dinner. Much more than that, this is about connection, regulation, and learning to truly enjoy cooking with your little so it becomes a part of daily life.
Deep down, that's truly what I want for my kids. For them to feel how much presence I gave them, how much love we cooked up together.
This course was made for moms who want the same thing — real cooking, real connection, and a little more ease in the kitchen. Not crafts that look like cooking. Actual meals your family eats, made together.
🕯️ 6-module video course — from chaos at 5pm to dinner made together, start to cleanup ($500 value)
📞 Monthly Zoom calls with Dana and Lou — community, support, and real answers ($100 value)
🎧 The entire course as a private podcast feed — for the days when screen time just isn't possible ($29 value)
🧘 Clean with Me guided audio — cleanup becomes the calmest part of the meal ($25 value)
📖 Mini cookbook for little chefs — recipes made for small hands ($19 value)
📅 Kitchen rhythm planner — your week, already flowing ($10 value)
💌 Check-ins and email support — you're not doing this alone ($19 value)
🔪 Our favorite kitchen gear guide — the exact tools we trust with our kids ($5 value)
That's over $700 of everything we know about cooking with littles, no subscription needed.
Your investment: $97 — (or 3 payments of $33). Lifetime access.
The meals are already happening. Let’s make them the best part of your day.
Cooking With Littles by Dana and Lou is a course that teaches you how to cook with your kids and actually enjoy it.
Including my son in the kitchen has taught him loop.
But it’s taught me so much more👇️
Some of the best memories of my life were made in a tiny off-grid shipping container kitchen — making soup, rolling meatballs, tasting sauces, and figuring out dinner together with little kids underfoot. I even free-birthed our daughter Willa on that very same kitchen floor, but I’ll save that story for the monthly zoom calls that come with this course!
Without proper running water or a dishwasher, I couldn’t really separate cooking from motherhood. So instead of pushing my son out of the kitchen, I started bringing him into the process. Slowly, cooking became less about getting dinner done and more about connection, creativity, play and belonging.
That’s how Cooking With Littles was born. To solve the question: how do I cook real food for my family without relying on a screen to distract my son?
Here’s my resume👇
It’s totally natural to want to cook in peace while listening to your favorite podcast. But learning to include your kids — one meal at a time — can shift your entire family story.
Listen, I get it, cooking with kids can be chaotic, messy, exhausting, and all of those things at the exact same time. Before having kids, how many times did you cook in the kitchen with a 2 year old?
I was never taught how to cook, and certainly never taught how to cook with a child. Like most kids, I grew up with two working parents and survived on lunchables, pizza, and frozen chicken nuggets. There was no passing down of family recipes, but man oh man were we masters of the toaster oven! Sometimes when my friends now see me in the kitchen with my kids they’ll say things like “wow, you’re such a natural,” but for me this is all a new skill I taught myself very recently. That’s how I know I can teach it to you too!
Back in middle school my routine would be walk home from school, make microwave popcorn, grab a diet coke, and turn on the Food Network. Rachel. Giada. Emrel. Ina. I’m not sure what pulled me to these chefs but I was hooked.
It would be many more years till I actually started cooking myself. My mom always joked that my rebellion in life would be turning my kitchen into the heart of my home, and she’s not wrong.
And I think somewhere along the way of teaching myself to cook, I realized something.
It wasn’t just the homemade food I was craving when I was watching those shows- it was everything else that went into it. The stories that the chefs shared of their grandma’s favorite meatballs, or their mom’s herb garden, or laughter around the table as they ate their aunt’s famous lasagna.
I knew that it was so much more than the food they were eating, it was the family culture that they were a part of that drew them back to the kitchen again and again.
So when Max was born, I found myself with an opportunity.
Not to recreate my childhood.
To rewrite it.
What if cooking with your little was the best part of your day?
Proof It Can Work For You
— even if it feels unlikely —
The family culture you’re building today is the one they’ll carry with them forever.
tell a new story
🌸
tell a new story 🌸
The last thing I’d want is for a tired mom to feel like she’s supposed to add one more thing to her fully stacked plate. I’m not saying add this chore and make your life harder. I’m saying learn this skill once, and make your life easier from now on.
When you join Cooking With Littles, you’ll learn some highly valuable skills, but more than that, it’ll become a new way of being.
When my husband Lou takes the kids, you know what I’m not likely to do? Cook. Clean. Or any other job I can do with my kids. I’d rather take a hot shower (completely alone, without watching a monitor, full shampoo and conditioner, and get to shave in peace). Journal with some tea. Chat with my friend Elsa. Or write an email to you ; ) I prefer using my support time for restoration, relaxation, and creative projects! And, when I do cook and clean solo listening to a podcast, it feels like the ultimate treat. This is about balance, not about doing more.
Learn to save your support for what matters most.
Raise adventurous eaters.
“Wow, Max is such a good eater.” I hear this kind of thing all the time because my kids will eat anything I put on their plate. Pâté. Chicken heart. Fried fish. Beef and eggs. Broccoli. Just today, I was at a cafe and three different people came up to me impressed that my 4 year old was chowing down on an open faced shrimp toastie covered in pickled onion and fish eggs. The thought “will Max like anything on the menu” has literally never crossed my mind. Meanwhile Willa (our 1 year old) was using my breakfast sandwich as a teething toy. Safe to say our family enjoys food.
Experience food freedom.
When we go to a restaurant or birthday party I have no problem with my kids eating cake, ice cream, seed oil, processed sugar, heck even red 40, you name it. Life is about experiences and I want my family to feel free and included in this wild world of ours. But at home we focus on single ingredient, real food. Cooking our food from scratch together all the time creates a really strong foundation. It’s been awesome to watch how Max can shift between food worlds (processed food outside the house & nutrient dense food inside the house). Living close to the 80/20 principle creates incredible food freedom so we don’t become so fragile that we short-circuit at the sight of a donut.
The kitchen is the perfect space to first develop the skill of nervous system regulation because it’s dynamic and private. (Unlike a meltdown at the grocery store where a bunch of total strangers find the need to get involved). I learned to stay calm cooking with Max in the kitchen first, and then I watched in awe as that calmness naturally spilled over into coffee shops, car drives, playdates, library visits, gardening, and all other aspects of mothering.
Become calm in pure chaos.
Cook once, thank me later.
I know lots of families where getting the kids to eat dinner means preparing two fully separate meals. Totally normal, I get it. Let’s say that takes an extra 20 minutes per day - not a huge deal - but over the course of 5 years that’s 600 hours. 600 hours you could be doing something else. Thats over $9600 dollars spent preparing two separate family meals. But what these moms tell me most is that it’s just annoying.
Last night Max and I were prepping dinner by chopping broccoli side by side. I was doing classic bite size pieces and then he started chopping like crazy - think food processor blitz mode. And he was like “you know mom it’s way yummier when you chop it smaller…”
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
— Benjamin Franklin
I took his lead and made teeny tiny broccoli - it took two seconds - and it gave him agency over dinner. When I served up his beef and broccoli 20 minutes later he squealed with joy “I made this! My broccoli!”
So yes… I catered to my son’s wishes - tiny broccoli over bite size broccoli and you know what? At the table my husband Lou was like “I like tiny broccoli way better too.” Max beamed. Our family enjoying the same meal all together is so precious to me. Its connection. Its nourishment. Its memory making. All wrapped up in a daily ritual.
“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community.”
— Michael Pollan
This is for you if…
You're already cooking for your family every day — real food, often from scratch — but the kitchen still feels like something you do around your kids rather than with them.
You see it on Instagram. The flour-dusted counters, the little hands rolling dough, the mom who looks completely at ease while her toddler stirs something on the stove. And part of you wonders — is that actually real? Can it really feel like that?
It can. But it doesn't start with every meal. It starts with meatballs once a week.
This course is for the mom who:
Is already home, already cooking, already values this season with her kids
Wants to move her little one from the playroom to the counter — but doesn't know where to start
Worries about the mess, the chaos, the extra time it takes
Dreams of a family where her teenagers still want to hang around the kitchen and talk to her — and knows that culture starts now
Wants to take a deep breath instead of snapping when her toddler throws flour on the floor
This isn't about being a perfect mom in a perfect kitchen. It's about becoming the calm, present, regulated version of yourself — one meal at a time.
If that's you, you're in the right place.
I want to tell you about the day Max cracked a dozen eggs.
For almost a year, eggs were a hard no. The texture, the goopiness — he wanted nothing to do with them. Every time we cooked together I'd offer him a chance. Every time, he'd pass. But I kept offering. No pressure, no forcing. Just an open door.
He'd cracked a thousand eggs holding my hands so he didn't have to feel the goo. But on his own? Not a chance.
Then one day Lou showed him a video. A clip of himself as a young toddler, cracking an egg like it was nothing.
He went quiet watching it.
I actually know how to do this.
That's when I leaned in. Because here's something we love to explore with Max — your experience of the world is shaped by the stories you tell yourself. And his story was I don't like cracking eggs. So I asked him —
What if this egg is a firework, and when it hits the bowl it sparkles across the whole sky?
What if it's a dinosaur egg and we might find something inside?
What if it's supplies for your construction site and you need to scramble it up to make concrete?
He looked at me. He looked at the egg.
And then he cracked it.
And then another. And another. He cracked a whole dozen, giggling the entire time, and I stood there crying the happiest tears of my life.
Because the kitchen isn't just a place for cooking. It's become the place where we learn the most about each other. About parenting. About life.
That's what I want to give you.
FAQ
There are 6 modules containing over 100 minutes of content. We suggest moving through one module every couple of days over a two-week period — that gives you time to actually bring the learning into your kitchen between lessons.
How long does the course take?
This course is designed for children ages 0–4. And if you've got older kids — stay tuned! Cooking On Heat, our next age group course, is in the works.
What age are the recipes designed for?
The course is $97 — with over $700 worth of value packed in through all the bonus materials. You'll get a mini cookbook designed for little chefs, a guided audio visualization to make cleaning up feel less like a chore (because yes, cooking does come with mess 😄), a kitchen rhythm planner, access to monthly Zoom calls with Dana and Lou, and a podcast feed of the entire course so you can learn screen-free while folding laundry.
How much does it cost?
Lifetime. This course is yours to return to again and again — maybe when your next baby becomes a toddler and you're starting fresh, or on a hard week when you need a reset. Pop on an audio module during a drive somewhere and remember exactly who you want to be: a calm, centered, present anchor for your children. This course is so much more than cooking. It's learning to live alongside your kids and actually enjoy it. That's worth coming back to.
How long do I have access?
This is actually a fantastic time to take the course — you have the space and time to move through the modules, and you can jump into the monthly calls from your couch with a sleeping baby on your chest. My babies were in the kitchen tucked in a carrier right from the beginning. They're learning through osmosis at this point. And once they can grab a spoon, sit up, or splash a potato in a bowl of water — you'll already be ready for them.
What if I have a newborn?
Not at all. The course flows better if you're already comfortable in the kitchen, but you don't need to be a pro. I literally ditched a decade of veganism when Max was 16 months old and learned to cook meat and dairy with him right by my side. The only real requirement? You see yourself as someone who likes to be in the kitchen.
Do I need to be a good cook?
Live calls are held the first Wednesday of every month at either 11am or 8pm EST — we rotate the time so it works for different schedules. Can't make it live? Every call is recorded and available to watch anytime.
When do the Zoom calls happen?
Yes! If you watch the entire course, show up to at least one Zoom call, and still don't notice any meaningful shift in how you experience cooking with your kids — we'll give you a full refund.
Is there a refund policy?
See What’s Inside👇
Module 1: It starts with you
Before we talk about knives, learning towers, or the perfect recipe for little hands — we need to talk about you.
Because here's what I've learned after years of cooking with Max: the most important ingredient in any kitchen moment with your kids isn't the food. It's your energy. I try to remind myself that I am the sun and these kids are orbiting around me. The more I can hold that energy of a calm, centered, confident person in the kitchen, the more my kids can do that same thing.
This module gives you the framework I use every single time I step into the kitchen with my littles. How to set your intention before you even turn on the stove. How to set expectations on the gentler side — make it easier for yourself rather than more difficult. How to pick the right time so nobody's rushed and everybody feels rested and fed. And how to take full responsibility for the entire experience — because when you take responsibility, you actually get power.
When I remember that I'm in the driver's seat, the tantrums and the chaos become something I can navigate rather than something that's happening to me. I can think more clearly. I can find the solution through it. I can see a little cloud forming over one of my kids and think — oh, maybe this little chef just needs a snack.
And on the days when the milk ends up on the floor and dinner's running late and everyone's losing it a little? I come back to the two phrases that have saved me more times than I can count.
It's just not that serious. And so what?
This module is where it all begins — because the kitchen you want? It starts with you.
Module 2: Let’s get cooking
Because here's the thing: baking is easy to include little kids in. Stirring, pouring, mixing — no sharp knives required. But when you're cooking every day — searing meat, chopping vegetables — it can feel like, hm, how do I actually incorporate my child in this?
That's exactly what this module answers.
You'll learn why a spice grinder has become one of my favorite ways to include Max in dinner prep — even when he was too little to stand. How the immersion blender became our secret weapon for sauces, soups, and dips that make dinner go so much smoother. Why there's a point where a sharp knife actually becomes safer than a plastic one. And why having two cutting boards — one for you, one for them — changes everything about how the kitchen feels.
But maybe the most important thing this module taught me is this: cooking with your kids isn't them cooking the meal. It's having a moment together in the kitchen making memories. I count it as a full win if Max is next to me at the counter chopping cheese and snacking on cheese while I make dinner. To me, that's him cooking. He's a part of it.
Once you’ve got them in the kitchen with you having a good time we can build on that. That’s the foundation. And we want to build this house on something nice and solid. Along the way, you’ll start collecting moments that will feel absolutely priceless.
The first time they crack an egg, the first time they taste a sourdough bagel they helped make — those are something I really cherish. Because they grow up so quickly. I know people say that, but it's true.
This is where we get into the good stuff — the actual physical kitchen. The tools, how to use them, and the different skill sets your kids will have at different ages.
Module 3: Cooking with magic
This is the module that lights me up the most — and honestly, once you watch it, you'll understand why.
Because when you really stop and think about what the world looks like through your child's eyes, everything is play. Folding clothes, running outside, doing dishes, making breakfast — to them it's all one big joyful experience. And when we as adults can drop down into that energy and meet them there, something really spectacular happens in the kitchen.
This module is about the full spectrum from mundane to magical — and all the tools I use to tip the scales toward magic when I'm feeling inspired. Leaning into story and whimsy, so that the mashed potatoes become a construction site and the meatball becomes something Spider-Man would eat to make his webs shoot farther. Being a curious dinner guest the way our friend Noah taught Lou and I — really tasting the food, asking what flavors are hiding in there, letting Max dream up secret ingredients and throw them in just to see what happens. Sourcing food together at the farmers market, letting your kids pick the produce, watching them beam with pride when a stranger notices just how much they already know.
And I want to be clear — this isn't about independence or raising mini chefs who can fend for themselves. It's about connection, memory making, and building a family culture around nourishment and play. It's about your kids growing up and being able to say "remember mom's meatballs" — and meaning it with their whole heart.
Woven through all of it is something I keep coming back to — that your children's childhood is a chance to rewrite your own story too. I didn't grow up cooking. I learned as an adult, watching the Food Network after school, soaking in other people's stories of grandmothers and kitchens and family tables, quietly dreaming of having that one day.
And now I do. So can you.
Module 4: Everybody clean up
Here's the thing about cooking with kids — it comes with a counterpart. The mess, the spills, the sink full of dishes, the baking powder that somehow ended up on every surface. And I know the mess is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people. But it doesn't have to be anymore.
Because cleaning, just like cooking, is something we can bring our kids into so elegantly. And when you do, something really shifts. Instead of the mess feeling like something that happens to you, it starts to feel like just another part of the rhythm of family life — one that everyone has a hand in, together.
One of the biggest things this module taught me is that trying to make the mess not happen doesn't make it happen less. If anything it just makes it bigger and bigger in your mind. When your kids feel free to tip over some milk or scoop out baking powder and have it go all over the counter, that's them learning. That's them feeling safe enough to play. And a kitchen that feels like a playground is a kitchen they'll want to come back to again and again.
I also want to say something that I think a lot of moms need to hear — it is completely okay to wake up to a messy kitchen. No one is going to call the police. It is not an emergency. I would much rather spend the time after my kids go to sleep with Lou than stand at the sink for an hour. Because cleaning can actually be done with the kids, and those quiet hours after bedtime are gold to me. I'm going to protect them every single time.
This module also comes with something really special — a bonus audio track called Clean With Me that Lou and I made as part of our Unwind program. I created it because I genuinely needed something to help me feel okay about doing a full sink of dishes again and again in the containers, without hot running water, after a full day of cooking from scratch. It's a guided visualization designed to shift how you feel about the mess — from overwhelmed to genuinely grateful for the beautiful, full, chaotic life that created it.
Because that sink full of dishes means you have kids to look after. It means you have plates and water and a family to feed. And Max — he can putter in the kitchen sink for half an hour just cleaning, going into this quiet meditative state, scrubbing things with such care and dignity. Watching him do that honestly fills my cup right up.
We are a team in this house. We work as a unit. And this module is your reminder that the mess was never all yours to manage in the first place.
Here's something I wish someone had told me earlier.
Your kids don't know what time dinner hits the table. They don't notice if the sink is clean or if you ran the dishwasher before bed. But somewhere along the way, we started connecting those things — the on-time dinner, the tidy kitchen, the nap schedule kept — with being a good mom. And our nervous systems believed us.
So we rush. We optimize. We get it done.
And in all that rushing, we miss it.
Because the real joy of being home with your kids isn't in the finished meal. It's in the parmesan they nibbled standing in the tower beside you while you were prepping. It's in the extended, unhurried, gloriously inefficient process.
When I stopped fighting my reality and surrendered to the natural flow of my kids and my day — something shifted. The kitchen stopped being a place I managed. It becomes a place you actually live.
That's what this course teaches. Not just how to cook with your kids. How to stop rushing through the best parts. How to actually enjoy it.
Here’s What You Get When You Join Cooking With Littles
6 module video course
($500 Value)
Us humans learn best by watching other humans do stuff. Luckily, Lou’s been capturing me and Max in the kitchen for 4 years now, and this course compiles over 750 hours of raw footage into digestible, mom-sized bites.
Bonus monthly group coaching calls
($100 Value)
But what about the integration? I can’t tell you the number of courses I’ve taken without any support. That’s where the monthly zoom calls come in. Attend live and talk with Dana & Lou directly, or watch the recordings afterwards.
Bonus audio visualization designed to help clean with ease
($25 Value)
We’ve included our favorite track “Clean with Me” from our product Unwind to help us moms clean with more ease. It’s a guided visualization designed to be listened to with a sink full of dishes in front of you. I know for me at least, there’s always a little more room for some ease while cleaning!
Bonus pdf kitchen rhythm planner
($10 Value)
My intention is for the kitchen to become a beautiful sacred space in your home the way it is in mine. Print this planner, keep it on your fridge, and refer to it often. Watch the ease flow amidst all the glorious kitchen chaos. What we notice grows.
Bonus pdf cookbook designed for little chefs
($19 Value)
Our little chefs thrive when we cook the right food at the right time of day with the right mindset. After years of experimentation, I’ve created recipes that will get you some early easy wins in the kitchen. Let’s build a little positive momentum, and then from there, the sky’s the limit!
Bonus list of my favorite kitchen gear
($5 Value)
Good gear can make all the difference. These are some of my favorites to set you up for success. What knives do I like for my little chefs? All the essentials with easy to use links.
Bonus podcast feed of entire course
($29 Value)
We believe an audio only version of a course should be the standard, not the exception. No screen required. Download the podcast feed for offline use and listen while waiting in line at the grocery store, doing laundry, etc. Us moms don’t usually get large chunks of time to ourselves uninterrupted, but we do get plenty of micro-moments, and this course is designed to be consumed in those little gaps.
Bonus check ins
($19 Value)
After joining Cooking With Littles you’ll be added to an email sequence filled with helpful tips, stories, and mindset gems to get you on track and make this process way easier.
6 module video course $500
Monthly Zoom calls with Dana and Lou $100
Guided audio — Clean with Me $25
Podcast feed of entire course $29
Mini cookbook for little chefs $19
Kitchen rhythm planner $10
Check ins and email support $19
Favorite kitchen gear guide $5
Total value $707
Your investment $97
One payment. Lifetime access. No subscriptions.