Certain Crock Pot dishes are from my point of view not worth to be made because they either do not increase the value of their ingredients or have some easy alternatives restoring even better stats:
Pumpkin Cookies: Increase sanity from +15 to +33
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Compared to Taffy, it spoils 50% faster and requires a pumpkin, which restores 37.5 hunger and 8 health if cooked. Other than that, it has overall worse stats than Taffy + Pumpkin:
1x Taffy + 1x Cooked Pumpkin restores: 5 health, 62.5 hunger, 15 sanity
1x Pumpkin Cookies + 1x honey restores: 3 health, 46.9 hunger, 15 sanity
Seafood Gumbo: Reduce required fish value to 2.0 for Seafood Gumbo and increase required fish value to 2.0 for Surf 'n' Turf
- Has overall worse stats than Surf 'n' Turf and requires at least one Eel, else you will always obtain Surf 'n' Turf.
California Roll: Reduce required fish value from 1.0 to 0.5 and required kelp from 2 to 1
- Replacing 1x Kelp with 1x Egg or 1x Twigs will result in a dish restoring 100% more health (and spoiling 50% slower if Egg is used).
Waffles:
- With the introduction of Surf 'n' Turf, Wobster Bisque and Wobster Dinner, it's not anymore the only (non-Warly) Crock Pot Dish which restores +60 health. Other than that, all of these dishes have better stats than Waffles (except Wobster Bisque which restores 33% less hunger), making Waffles not that useful. By replacing the 4th filler with 1x Living Wobster, you'll obtain Wobster Dinner which restores the same amount of health and hunger but also +45 sanity and lasts 150% longer.
Ice Cream:
- With the introduction of Wobster Dinner and Jelly Salad, it's not anymore the only Crock Pot Dish which restores +50 sanity. It's also the dish with the worst stats. By replacing the 1-2x Ice with 1x Living Wobster and 0-1x Twigs, you'll obtain Wobster Dinner which restores +60 health, +12.5 hunger and lasts a whopping 400% longer than Ice Cream. Considering the fact that stale food restores 0 sanity and sanity is the main reason for consuming Ice Cream, it's a major improvement which makes Ice Cream literally useless. Even the fact that Ice Cream can be made with Electric Milk doesn't change that much because it needs to be consumed as soon as it's made. And in most cases it's easier to either sleep in a siesta or a tent or to fight the shadows instead of charging & fighting a Volt Goat.
Unagi: Increase health from +20 to +30 and/or hunger from +18.75 to +37.5
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By using 2x Monster Meat you can obtain Surf 'n' Turf which is almost 3 times as good as Unagi:
3x Unagi (3x Eel + 3x Lichen + 6x Any Filler) restores: 60 health, 56.25 hunger, 15 sanity
1x Surf 'n' Turf (2x Monster Meat + 2x Eel) + 2x Lichen restores: 66 health, 62.5 hunger, 23 sanity - Replacing 1x Eel with 1x Butterfly Wings will result in Butter Muffin, restoring 100% more hunger and spoiling 33% slower.
- Removing the Lichen or replacing the Eel with any other fish; and using only 1x Twigs will result in Fishsticks, restoring 100% more health and hunger.
Asparagus Soup: Increase health from +20 to +40 or reduce the amount of required veggies and increase hunger from 18.75 to 37.5
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Replacing the 1x Asparagus and 1x Vegetable with 1x Butterfly Wings + 1x Twigs will overall grant better stats and more than twice as much hunger:
1x Asparagus Soup + 1x Butterfly Wings: 28 health, 28,125 hunger, 5 sanity
1x Butterfly Muffin + 1x Asparagus: 23 health, 62.5 hunger, 5 sanity (Unless you use 3x Red Cap as filler, resulting stats will be even higher if you replace them with twigs)
Fish Tacos: Increase hunger from 37.5 to 75, reduce spoilage to 10 days
- Spoils 66% faster than Fishsticks and by replacing 1x Corn + 1x Twigs with 2x Berries you'll end up with twice as much health and slightly more hunger.
Fruit Medley: Reduce required fruit amount to 2.5 and increase dish priority from 0 to 1, increase overall stats
- Has a complicated recipe (3x Fruit + 1x Twigs (to avoid getting Fist Full of Jam)) and spoils 150% faster than Trail Mix while also giving worse stats.
Stuffed Eggplant: Increase health from 3 to 30 and hunger from 37.5 to 62.5
- Unless 1x Mushroom and 2x Twigs are used for the 0.5x vegetable filler, eating the ingredients will restore more health at the cost of 5 sanity. Adding a Fish instead of 1x Twigs will restore 40 health instead.
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Replacing the Eggplant with 1x Butterfly Wings will result in Butterfly Muffin which restores better stats:
1x Stuffed Eggplant + 1x Butterfly Wings: 11 health, 46.875 hunger, 5 sanity
1x Braised Eggplant + 1x Butter Muffin: 40 health, 62.5 hunger, 5 sanity
Kabobs: Increase the max amount of inedibles from 1 to 2
- Using fish instead of meat will increase the restored health by +37 at the cost of 50% faster spoilage
- Using berries or veggies instead of twigs will increase the hunger by +25 at the cost of 50% faster spoilage
- If you use at least 1x Vegetables in your filler, you can swap the meat(s) with 1x Butterfly Wings (and more twigs) to obtain Butter Muffin, restoring +17 health
Ratatouille:
- Adding 1x Butterfly Wings will result in Butter Muffin which grants +12.5% hunger and +27 health and allows to replace 2 more fillers with twigs
Puffed Potato Soufflé: Increase health from 20 to 40 and hunger from 37.5 to 62.5
- Replacing 1x Potato with 1x Twigs will result in an almost equivalent dish without using the potato (+20 health, +25 hunger), replacing 1x Potato with any meat will result in Pierogi which spoils 50% slower and restores 100% more health at the cost of 10 sanity.
Hot Dragon Chili Salad:
- By replacing the 1x Dragon Fruit with 1x any meat and by cooking the 1x Dragon Fruit with 3x Twigs you'll get a whopping +73 health and +75 hunger at the cost of 10 sanity and 4.5 minutes of heat. In this case, heat is less of a problem because obtaining Dragon Fruits & Peppers before winter arrives is harder than obtaining a proper heat source & insulation during winter.
Ceviche:
- Replacing 1x Ice or 1x Fish with 1x Twigs will result in Fishsticks which restores 100% more health and 50% more hunger at the cost of coldness. Other than that, Ceviche's recipe is almost same as Seafood Gumbo's recipe, except that it requires 1x Ice instead of 0.5x Fish, by replacing the 1x Ice with 0.5x Fish you might end up with Seafood Gumbo or in most cases with Surf 'n' Turf, restoring more than twice as much stats as Ceviche. The saved 1x Ice can be eaten directly to gain at least 75% of the freezing effect of Ceviche.
Melonsicle:
- Despite me not being able to find a good replacement for this dish, it feels like a quite bad dish due to its low stats. Especially the fact that it turns stale after 1.5 days, restoring no sanity at all makes it not as useful as other sanity restoring dishes. Also eating 1x Melon + 1x Ice will cool you down for longer than the Melonsicle itself.
Especially for Wurt, Fist Full of Jam might deserve a little boost too, for example by increasing its hunger or by increasing the max amount of allowed inedibles from 0 to 1.
I would also ask for a way to obtain ice somehow during summer or in caves without the use of a Deconstruction Staff. Players tend to use all the ice in the Ice Box for Ice Flingomatics or Meatballs, making recipes requiring ice hard to obtain. Sustaining everyone with ice requires alot of ice and there are easier alternatives to keep someone cool during summer e.g. by having a Thermal Stone inside your Ice Box.