Question About Produce

I actually like that there are so many recipes that call for "any vegetable" as it gives me more flexibility for meal planning.

However, I do miss one little bit of coding from TS3. You could make pancakes with any fruit, for example, but then when you hovered over the plate or serving dish, it would actually say strawberry pancakes, peach pancakes, etc.

I loved that, because it was technically only one recipe, which made scrolling through the menu options tidier, but it added a little color to gameplay.

"Inna Minnit;c-17992943" wrote:

"bshag4lv;c-17991364" wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I just wondered as I have all sorts of cc receipes and none of them called for green beans or peas. With the gardening borked, forever it seems, there is just so much stuff my sims can plant and then take care of, so I tend to ignore the beans and peas.

Interesting posts!

Graft them so there are multiple types on one plant?

I try to graft plants of similar types/seasons together, like all the berries or the Herbalism plants (huckleberry/muckleberry, fireleaf/poison fireleaf, etc.) to save space in the garden.

"stilljustme2;c-17993195" wrote:

"Inna Minnit;c-17992943" wrote:

"bshag4lv;c-17991364" wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I just wondered as I have all sorts of cc receipes and none of them called for green beans or peas. With the gardening borked, forever it seems, there is just so much stuff my sims can plant and then take care of, so I tend to ignore the beans and peas.

Interesting posts!

Graft them so there are multiple types on one plant?

I try to graft plants of similar types/seasons together, like all the berries or the Herbalism plants (huckleberry/muckleberry, fireleaf/poison fireleaf, etc.) to save space in the garden.

I do the same - I actually don't mind that I don't get as many harvestables, as I usually end up with more than my Sim could ever use. It cuts down on the gardening work, too, if you need a large variety of harvestables. (If you're playing a 'simple living' lot, or trying to get the ingredients for animal treats, you can end up with a rather extensive garden.) It also cuts down on the amount of fertiliser needed, which can be a challenge.

I would like more recipes that use some of the harvestables that are otherwise simply 'any fruit' or 'any vegetable'. Also, I'd like to be able to select 'any fruit' or 'any vegetable'. I have to keep some items that do have specific uses, or that are needed for fertiliser (growfruit) in the storage box so that they don't get used to make animal treats.

"invisiblgirl;c-17993513" wrote:

"stilljustme2;c-17993195" wrote:

"Inna Minnit;c-17992943" wrote:

"bshag4lv;c-17991364" wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I just wondered as I have all sorts of cc receipes and none of them called for green beans or peas. With the gardening borked, forever it seems, there is just so much stuff my sims can plant and then take care of, so I tend to ignore the beans and peas.

Interesting posts!

Graft them so there are multiple types on one plant?

I try to graft plants of similar types/seasons together, like all the berries or the Herbalism plants (huckleberry/muckleberry, fireleaf/poison fireleaf, etc.) to save space in the garden.

I do the same - I actually don't mind that I don't get as many harvestables, as I usually end up with more than my Sim could ever use. It cuts down on the gardening work, too, if you need a large variety of harvestables. (If you're playing a 'simple living' lot, or trying to get the ingredients for animal treats, you can end up with a rather extensive garden.) It also cuts down on the amount of fertiliser needed, which can be a challenge.

I would like more recipes that use some of the harvestables that are otherwise simply 'any fruit' or 'any vegetable'. Also, I'd like to be able to select 'any fruit' or 'any vegetable'. I have to keep some items that do have specific uses, or that are needed for fertiliser (growfruit) in the storage box so that they don't get used to make animal treats.

I totally agree. I am currently reviewing all the produce used in recipes. They’ve changed with the new ingredients in Cottage Living. I’m quite sure pancakes used to require fruit, for example. But they don’t now. So there are a bunch of online sources that need to be updated for those who own CoL.

So far, I can’t find a reason to grow pears. I can’t even can them or make a pear pie (they are delicious if you haven’t tried them). So what can they be used for besides a recipe that calls for “any fruit”? I have a bajillion raspberries, apples, lemons, etc so I will never need pears unless there is a recipe I haven’t come across yet (do tell). Same with cherries, grapes, pomegranates, (ETA: pomegranates are required for superfood salad apparently) ... and don’t get me started on the vegetables. All I can do is turn them into friendly animal treats (which greatly increases the value if you just want to sell everything) but I have to separate all the ingredients I want to save from the fridge first, or else my oversized lettuce will be used up again. It’s even more frustrating that I can’t put that oversized lettuce in a chest, we can’t “take all” from the chest, and we have no filtering options in fridges and chests, which seem to jumble all their contents up with no rhyme or reason.

And I am not even bothering to grow herbs anymore because I can get enough just from opening seed packets. Sage used to be my go-to plant to graft onto because they are in season all year, but the piles of worthless sage have been getting to me. Can’t even make animal treats with them.

Sage is used in a few recipes though? If I remember right. I'll check.

ETA: Everything Bagels uses sage, Artisan Herb Bread you can use either sage or basil...and that seems to be it now. Huh.

"WildIrishBanshee;c-17993546" wrote:
Sage is used in a few recipes though? If I remember right. I'll check.

ETA: Everything Bagels uses sage, Artisan Herb Bread you can use either sage or basil...and that seems to be it now. Huh.

Thanks for checking on it. I really need to load a save with someone who has baking and gourmet cooking maxxed. And I need to check grills, too.

I’m not going to sweat it if I can make blueberry bagels, plain bagels or onion bagels, although I love an everything bagel irl.

So I went through all the regular cooking recipes, gourmet cooking, baking (oven and cupcake machine), experimental, grilled, and sulani-specific. My sim doesn’t know many City Living recipes.

There is an avocado dish that doesn’t require avocado. There’s a sausage & peppers recipe that doesn’t require the green pepper, which isn’t specifically called for in any recipe. The green beans and peas were nowhere to be found. Nothing calls for grapes, cherries, pears or blackberries that will not take a different fruit substitute - strawberries and apples will get it done. Pineapple and taro are useful in specific Sulani grill pit recipes, coconut useful for one cake, and these are so infrequently used by me, I won’t bother with them (or even kava because I can still purchase it to make it even with Simple Living on).

I’m also going to turn my oversized crops into preserves right away because they actually go father that way in recipes and the preserves won’t get used up in animal treats. I don’t know who makes salad out of jarred lettuce conserve, but apparently it can be done in the game.

Love the answers!

I use the "spare" fruit to make fizzy sodas, in my childhood we had sodas with fruity names, Nehi Grape, Orange, Strawberry, so that's what I name my sodas.

My spellcasters need all kinds of ingredients for potions, sage, potatoes, apples, and others I can't think of right now. My herbalists and jungle explorers need lots of insect repellent which means lots of basil and noxious elderberries. My sims in HoB always keep an extra blueberry, strawberry, blackberry in their inventories for the bunnies and birds...nevermind the canning and baking. :)

Ingredients are badly coded in this game. There is no way to program them to check whether a player has the pack installed that they came with. That is why you won't find recipes calling specifically for peas, avocado or bell pepper. It would make the recipe unusable for players who do not have the respective pack.
It's also the main reason I had to get rid of my moreingredientsrequired mod after CoL released.
I really wish they would add more code to check whether a certain EP is installed. They were one of the strenght's of TS2 programming.

"bshag4lv;c-17993678" wrote:
Love the answers!

I use the "spare" fruit to make fizzy sodas, in my childhood we had sodas with fruity names, Nehi Grape, Orange, Strawberry, so that's what I name my sodas.

My spellcasters need all kinds of ingredients for potions, sage, potatoes, apples, and others I can't think of right now. My herbalists and jungle explorers need lots of insect repellent which means lots of basil and noxious elderberries. My sims in HoB always keep an extra blueberry, strawberry, blackberry in their inventories for the bunnies and birds...nevermind the canning and baking. :)

That's a good point - there are a number of herbalist and spellcasting potions that require a specific plant, and not only the special plants that came with the game packs. I think basil is the one I needed for the tummy therapy, which is useful off the grid, because Sims seem to be prone to eating unripe fruits and veggies.