I like to think of 14 to 20 months as the pre-full-blown-toddler stage. At 14 months, Bean could stand steadily on her feet and she began the transition from a baby’s dutiful dependence to a toddler’s insistent independence.

For us, cooking has become a way for her to assert independence, in a safe environment. Of course, a toddler can’t go from 0 to making her own peanut butter sandwich in one afternoon, no matter how much she insists on it. And so we began the slow process of learning how to cook. I provide as much or as little instruction as seems necessary, slowly slowly guiding her over the course of months.

As I wrote last time, we began by having her wash the vegetables for dinner; simply including her in this one step unleashed the flood gates. Suddenly, months of pent up curiosity and a desire to help tumbled out of her, and I figured I could either insist that she go away or include her; I followed her lead and included her.

Here is how I got started:

1. Put vegetables on roasting pan: It seemed logical that after helping me clean vegetables, that she should witness what I did with them. So, I created an assembly line: I chopped the vegetable, pushed it to the side of the cutting board, where Bean picked them up and dropped them into a pan. Yes, it’s a make-work exercise, but she could observe how I used a knife, and she’s learning that food goes from raw to cooked.

2. Drop small amounts of ingredients into a bowl: Drop a pre-measured teaspoon of that, a tablespoon of something else into a large bowl, etc. She was learning that a variety of ingredients, some wet, some dry, goes into making food, and each are handled differently using different tools.

3. Toss vegetables in olive oil, salt, and pepper: An obvious next step after showing her how to put vegetables in a pan, is to teach her how we toss vegetables and seasonings with our hands. Also, this step was SUPER FUN and VERY OILY.

4. Mix ingredients in a mixing bowl with her: This step builds off Steps 2 and 3: after we drop ingredients into a bowl, we need to then mix them together. Whereas in Step 3, it’s easy to keep vegetables confined to a large flat roasting pan, she was now learning that mixing in a bowl meant keeping all of the ingredients within a certain space. (Haha, that’s code for “expect an epic mess.”) She could mix together the ingredients for veggie burgers, or dough for bread or cookies.

5. Chopping soft fruits and vegetables: Oh yes. Since Step 1, that child has really wanted to practice her own chopping skills, and now is the time to let her experiment, with a blunt chopping tool of course. Because she’d been watching me do it for so many months, she knew exactly what to do with the chopper once I gave it to her.

At this age, Bean practiced chopping bananas, melon, avocado and cooked vegetables. I showed her how to pick up a whole banana, position it on her chopping board, chop into smaller pieces using two hands, then place the smaller pieces into a bowl. Most of the banana ended up in her mouth, of course, but this was the highlight of her culinary experience. By a landslide.

I would wait days or weeks between steps, until I thought she was ready for more. Sometimes, she would insist on getting to the next step (after watching me do it time and again), so I’d follow her lead.

Here are some products for getting started:

1. Curious Chef Mixing Bowl: It’s flat bottomed and ringed with rubber, to avoid accidental tipping over. It’s made a huge difference for us, and I wish I’d gotten this sooner.

2. Joie Vegetable Wavy Chopper: It is completely blunt so not a real knife. This is the same chopper used in her Montessori class.

3. Ikea Proppmatt Chopping Board: This is just the right size for a toddler, with a handle that’s easy for a toddler to lift and maneuver.

Good luck!