I adore the cooking and meal-making system.
Rather than the common suggestion of simply 'more ways to mix' existing food items-
I think it'd be more interesting to have to sculpt/smith different pots/pans/apparatus to cook various meals with.
Perhaps even some meals need you to use specific cookware.
A frying pan could have a 2 meal max, but cook a little faster.
A dutch oven that could cook a much larger meal at the cost of perhaps heating slower and needing an additional lid made for it.
Baking pans for cakes? Smithed Waffle Irons? Roasting Spits for a whole hog BBQ? Etc.
Even sculpting an entire 19th century wood/coal-burning cast-iron stove. I already do it by chisel, would be awesome to actually craft it piece by piece from the iron
I love cooking in a pot, but sometimes some bacon and eggs in the cast iron pan sounds great too.