Better Cooking Menu - V3.0 - August 2026 Update!

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Menu Overflowing and Blocking Buttons?

This problem happens when the text in a box is too long, causing each row to become larger and therefore overflowing and blocking the buttons making the menu unusable.
If you have this problem, it is likely caused by a recipe name or an ingredient being too long, or maybe in combination with a font replacement mod that pushes a long text string over the edge.

Cases:
- A custom recipe or ingredient with a missing string and NRaas UntranslatedKey installed, which will give a long string key.
Fix: fix the string so it shows correctly (I suggest reporting the creator if they are active so they can update it)

- EA ingredient with a missing string and NRaas UntranslatedKey installed. I only know of the abstract "Grape" ingredient which doesn't have a corresponding string. I intend to make a fix for this in the next update though.
Fix: if a custom recipe uses the "Grape" ingredient (parent to base game and WA grapes), you can change it to "Grapes" instead (base game grape ingredient) - Fixed in v3.0!

- Long ingredient names (or recipe name, but less likely a problem because there can be 3 ingredients, but only one recipe name). The WA grapes have super long names so a recipe that uses them will possibly have the overflowing problem.
Fix: use a different ingredient (e.g use "Grapes" instead of the WA grapes. Alternatively, you can shorten the names by editing the STBL for custom ones, or creating an string override for EA names.

Updates
1st September 2026 (v3.1)
- Fixed grilling on community lots which I broke in the last update also prevented quick meals from being an option for grilling...
28th August 2026 (v3.0 )
- improved how I replace the EA interactions so it should be more robust and sims shouldn't be blocked from cooking like they were before (e.g plumbots, when there's a butler...)
- cook from menu interaction is now an immediate interaction (choose the recipe straight away and the cooking interaction will be added to queue)
- no longer allowed to cook recipes where you're missing ingredients that can't be bought from the store (e.g ambrosia, frogs legs) (thanks to Destrospean for finding this)
- added the uni life microwave meals to the menu
- new interaction called Have Something... where sims can choose a random meal to cook or snack to have
- set the abstract "Grape" ingredient's missing name key to the BG "Grapes" one so recipes that use it (to allow for WA grapes to count) won't have a missing string in the menu
- added Greek translation
- reorganised code so the menu can be used with other custom cooking interactions with the DisplayDialogAndGetResult function



The Mod
This mod is a replacement for the EA cooking interaction(s) (they are actually one interaction made to look like many) to have them under one interaction which displays a dialogue window rather than the pie menu.

With this mod, the fridge's pie menu is much less cluttered: Have [meal], Serve [meal], Serve Dessert, Have Quick Meal, and Make Gourmet Pet Food are replaced with just one "Cook From Menu" button.

From the menu, you can cook a meal (regardless of the time of day, single or group serving), serve dessert, have a quick meal, and make gourmet pet food. You can filter by meal type, and choose to show or hide recipes you don't have the ingredients for.

Other than getting rid of the time of day limitation, recipes should be available (or not available) just the same as without the mod, and there's no other functionality. If you have mods that add new recipes, adjust ingredients, add ingredients to Quick Meals etc, they should work the same. The selected recipe should be cooked as normal by the sim

With v3.0, there's a new fridge interaction called Have Something... (Cook Something, Grab a Snack) for getting a random available recipe. This is autonomous so sims can use it on their own when hungry.

No Fridge Shopping
This mod also takes into consideration whether or not you have ani's NoFridgeShopping mod installed, and if so, you need to have the required ingredients in order to cook the recipe.

Strings & Translations
I tried to use EA strings wherever possible, but there are a few added with the mod. There's a text file provided for translators as usual. Thank you!

Portuguese PT & BR - David Mtv
German - Norn
Spanish ES & MX - CMaxi
Russian - Sonya Kas
Polish - sandra_vu
Chinese TW - yupai1019
French - Symbolism
Greek - herrbrecht

Conflicts and Notes
This mod removes the EA cooking interactions and adds two new ones. It also checks if NoFridgeShopping is installed and deals with that specifically.
So any other mod that removes or replaces the EA cooking interactions won't work correctly with this mod:
- icarus_allsorts' Cook With Any Ingredient mod
- TheSweetSimmer's Kitchen Tweaks mod, but only the version that replaces the cooking interaction to make sims wash their hands first. You can use the version that doesn't do this with this mod just fine

Other cooking mods which add new interactions (such as my Homebaked Bread mod) will appear on the fridge as normal in pie-menu form, and won't appear in this mod's cooking menu. This is also the case for the Store's Baker's Station and similar objects.
Basically, if a recipe won't show up in the EA fridge cooking interactions, it won't show in this menu.

One issue is that the cooking interactions from other appliances such as the stove don't work anymore (the sim will just do nothing when you select a recipe). This is because the real cooking interaction isn't allowed for user-directed, but when selecting the interaction from an appliance, it's set to that, so it fails. Hopefully this doesn't bother you too much as the cooking menu is better anyway!
Update v1.1: Now those interactions are hidden, just like the ones on the fridge.
Update v2.0: Now there is a Cook From Menu interaction for these appliances too

If for some reason you want the original cooking interactions to be visible again, you can use NRaas Retuner to change the tuning of the original cooking interaction (will be called something like Have Breakfast / Pancakes in the NRaas menu) to reset Disallow User-Directed back to False - then the original cooking interactions will appear on the fridge again alongside "Cook From Menu", and will allow you to use the old cooking interactions on other appliances, if you unhide them too. No longer works since v3.0

Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoy! Any issues, let me know.
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