Homegrown ingredients = poor food quality?

It's probably the normal quality of the plants.. which is the starting or "poor" level. I usually won't let them use plants from their garden till they are above good level and that's just like mid way. I haven't tried it any other way though for years because it use to affect it... so maybe it still does. There is a box you can check so they won't use the ingredients. that way if you have them in your inventory your sim won't use it in the dish you are making. Get your plants to a better quality and keep on trying as @Chazzy suggested.

Mine always turn out excellent...but that's with a high cooking skill and high quality plants. So you're either encountering a bug or you just need to get the quality of your plants up....just make sure when the plants are ready to "evolve" that you evolve them up to better quality.

Thanks, everyone! Guess I'll have to pimp my veggies first.

Yep as everyone says, its the quality of your ingredients; or your garden.

Small tip: A bit of a determination of if your plants are pretty good is have a sim eat one.
When they do they get a moodlet due to eating something fresh, it varies based on how good it is, and gives off a better moodlet too, the better it is. Kinda helps you determine if they will enhance your meals or not as well.

You will also notice that things like Orange Juice and Milk will come out a lot better quality than default when you have good harvestables in your fridge.

Yeah, it might be a glitch with the first few lower ranges of the harvestables. I don't know if the devs meant it to be like that or not. The first level of plant quality should really be started out Poor, then Fair, before Normal, to give players a heads up about it. I notice it doesn't usually lower the quality of the meals if the Sim has high cooking skill, and/or high quality refrig and stove, and possibly Chef's Kitchen lot trait.

If your Sim has a mid range Handiness level, and you don't have the Simmoolah to buy new appliances, you can upgrade them to produce comparable quality food to the high end ones. You do need to purchase Upgrade Parts, but they are usually cheaper than the appliances by a fair amount, and you can Salvage For Parts in the trash piles you get when you repair broken objects. If your Sim is a Slob, they can rummage in the trash receptacles, etc, and sometimes get them, too.

I find it quite satisfying when my Sim has an old wreck of a stove/kitchen, yet can produce tasty feasts. :yum:

You need to have a higher quality of a harvest in order to have a better quality of foods. If you have Outdoor retreat, take you Sim on vacation and befriend the hermit to learn the fertilizer recipe. Or you could do what I did. I created a room with full of just the Fungal Infusion Fertilize because I got tired of making it over and over to speed evolve some plants.

Fungal Infusion Fertilizers

"SeraphicPink;c-16342921" wrote:

Small tip: A bit of a determination of if your plants are pretty good is have a sim eat one.
When they do they get a moodlet due to eating something fresh, it varies based on how good it is, and gives off a better moodlet too, the better it is. Kinda helps you determine if they will enhance your meals or not as well.

Ah, I never thought of that. Thanks! :)

@unicornsimmer123 Oh, I'm at 7 or something, but for now all I have done with the garden is plant, water and harvest, haven't tried any of the fancy stuff yet.

"Stutum;c-16344194" wrote:
Oh, I'm at 7 or something, but for now all I have done with the garden is plant, water and harvest, haven't tried any of the fancy stuff yet.

Ahhhh, then it's most likely just the quality of plant. You'll seem them sort of sparkle when they are ready to "evolve" in quality....there are several stages of evolution. Also, the "Chef's Kitchen" lot trait will give you a better chance of higher quality cooked meals and the "Great Soil" lot trait will speed up the plant evolution process.

"JimG72;c-16344443" wrote:

"Stutum;c-16344194" wrote:
Oh, I'm at 7 or something, but for now all I have done with the garden is plant, water and harvest, haven't tried any of the fancy stuff yet.

Ahhhh, then it's most likely just the quality of plant. You'll seem them sort of sparkle when they are ready to "evolve" in quality....there are several stages of evolution. Also, the "Chef's Kitchen" lot trait will give you a better chance of higher quality cooked meals and the "Great Soil" lot trait will speed up the plant evolution process.

Ah yeah, just like top quality food does. I thought it meant the vegetables/fruits were good. Thanks, this really helps! :) Perhaps I should go through the trouble and build from scratch with those traits as well.