I generally play legacy family style so there is usually at least one highly skilled chef in the house. So there is a perfect plate of your favorite meal chilling in the fridge already.
When I'm starting a new household, I'll put the stove in family inventory and have them just make microwave meals until they tabcast their cooking skill up to 3 or 4.
I haven't used the food replicator in a while, but I have one now, and it's acting weird. When I replicate a group meal, leftovers in the fridge go bad in less than a day.