Short description:

Recipes for 70+ new food and drink items, including a variety of teas, a plethora of soups, new types of dumplings, salt-free cooked meats, bierocks, chaurus pie, recipes from the book Uncommon Taste, and much, much more.

Also includes recipes for some previously-uncraftable vanilla food items, including seared slaughterfish, baked potatoes, grilled leeks, honey, and the long taffy treat.

No new models or textures. No scripts. No worldspace edits. No vendor edits. No leveled list integration. No vanilla or DLC records of any kind edited or overwritten. Simple, safe, and lore-friendly.

Made entirely with TES5Edit, using only vanilla, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn assets. No other dependencies and no conflicts.

New in version 1.1:

More teas! More mushroom soups! More omelettes! Hard boiled eggs! Meat dumplings! Mudcrab stew! One more missing recipe for a vanilla food item! Corrected spelling of "omelette"!

Still no new models, textures, scripts, worldspace edits, vendor edits, leveled list integration, or overwritten records. Still simple and basic, using only vanilla, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn assets. Still perfectly safe, I assure you. Just more recipes and ingestibles.

Full description:

I kept the effects, values, and healing benefits in line with vanilla foods, so there isn't anything overpowered here. For recipes that use primarily food ingredients, I based my effects on those offered by vanilla food items. However, for recipes that include multiple alchemical ingredients, I considered the effects more carefully, so that certain recipes--particularly the omelettes, fish soups, and savory meats (not so much the teas)--produce effects like weak versions of potions brewed with the same ingredients. Now non-alchemist characters can enjoy mild benefits from ingredients which also happen to be regular food items. The alchemical properties of salt, however, are ignored. (See FAQ if you care why.) A handful of recipes have effects that aren't necessarily justified by the alchemical ingredients, but either are justified by Tamrielic lore (look for a couple of Oblivion-inspired treats) or real-world folklore or folk medicine that seemed to comfortably fit into Skyrim. And of course, most food items have a restore health effect, regardless of ingredients, because that is an effect shared by nearly every food item in the base game.

When selecting alchemical ingredients to use in various recipes, I limited myself to herbs, berries, mushrooms, eggs, and other things that might reasonably be expected to taste good. No ground-up claws or feathers or anything like that. This is cooking, not alchemy.

I started this because I wanted more nonalcoholic beverages in my game, beyond the rare jug of milk that the Hearthfire DLC introduced. Then I added some foods to go with my drinks. And then I decided to replicate as faithfully as possible the recipes from the in-game books Uncommon Taste and Chaurus Pie: A Recipe. Then I tried to fill gaps where the game was missing recipes or not using particular ingredients. Then I kept adding more and more recipes, just for fun. However, I kept all recipes lore-friendly and not overly fancy, though a few are moderately fancy. There are a small number of complex two-part recipes which must be started at a cooking pot, then finished in an oven. You can blame Chaurus Pie: A Recipe for starting me down that dark path.

Recipes that require a Hearthfire oven are marked as such. Otherwise, a standard cooking pot is used.


New recipes for previously-uncraftable vanilla foods and ingredients:

Honey
Ingredients: 3 Honeycomb
Why? Honey is ridiculously rare! I needed someway to generate it.

Long Taffy Treat
Ingredients: 1 Honey + 1 Butter + 1 Snowberries (produces 2 taffy)
Why? Skyrim's taffy is pink, so I figured maybe it's snowberry flavored.

Grilled Leeks
Ingredients: 1 Leek + 1 Salt Pile
Why? Bandits are cooking these on braziers in random dungeons. This isn't hard.

Baked Potatoes
Ingredients: 1 Potato + 1 Butter + 1 Goat Cheese Wedge + 1 Salt Pile
Why? The baked potatoes in Skyrim look like they're covered in butter and melted cheese.

Boiled Creme Treat
Ingredients: 1 Butter + 1 Honey + 1 Chicken's Egg + 1 Jug of Milk + 1 Sack of Flour
Why? It's a pastry that isn't baked in an oven! The name even says so! Okay, I know that only the creme would be boiled, and that the pastry would be baked afterwards. But this is already a pretty resource-intensive recipe for a fairly low benefit, and I thought making it a two-parter would be excessive. But the two-part recipes are coming . . .

Seared Slaughterfish
Ingredients: 1 Slaughterfish Scales + 1 Salt Pile
Why? If you kill a slaughterfish, you should be able to cook and eat it. There is no vanilla raw slaughterfish meat item, so I used the scales as a substitute. Just imagine that when you're taking the scales, you're really harvesting the whole fish.

Charred Skeever Hide
Ingredients: 1 Skeever Tail
Why? Giants and bandits can char skeevers on spits. Why can't we? Because there is no raw skeever hide item, I substituted the tail. Again, imagine that you're skinning the whole skeever, not just chopping off its tail.

Mead with Juniper Berry
Ingredients: 1 Nord Mead + 1 Juniper Berries
Why? As a teetotaler, I wasn't planning to include any alcoholic recipes at all, but a good friend requested the juniper berry mead from Helgen. I considered the lore implications, as the NPC who knew how to make this variety of mead died in the dragon attack. However, Elmus of Thirsk Mead Hall asks you to fetch some juniper berries for his mead, so apparently juniper-flavored mead isn't all that rare in Tamriel. So, Zaijovan, this is for you.

Cheese Wedges (multiple recipes)
Ingredients: 1 Cheese Wheel (Goat or Eidar) OR 1 Sliced Cheese (the "Pac-Man" formation)
Why? Yes, it is ridiculous to have to do this at a cooking pot, as you're only cutting cheese with a knife (or sword or axe or whatever), but it's even more ridiculous that without a mod you can't do it at all. (Lydia: "Pardon me, my thane, but may I have one tiny slice from that giant cheese wheel you're carrying?" Dragonborn: "Not possible. This cheese wheel is impervious to all blades and magic.")


New food and beverage items with recipes:

Herbal Tea
Ingredients: 1 Frost Mirriam + 1 Elves Ear + 1 Thistle Branch
Effects: Resist Frost 10% for 60 seconds
Why? You find frost mirriam and elves ear hanging in kitchens all over Skyrim, but they aren't used in any vanilla recipes. I decided to change that.

Canis Root Tea
Ingredients: 3 Canis Root
Effects: Fortify One-Handed 5% for 60 seconds + Damage Stamina 5 points
Why? Master Neloth gets to drink canis root tea. Why can't we?
Why damage stamina? It's a very bitter tea. That first sip will make you flinch.

Juniper Tea
Ingredients: 3 Juniper Berries
Effects: Fortify Marksman 5% for 60 seconds
Why? Juniper tea is a thing that exists in the real world.

Lavender Tea
Ingredients: 3 Lavender
Effect: Resist Magic 10% for 60 seconds
Why? Lavender is one of my favorite flavors, in tea and in many other things.

Breath of the Mountain Tea
Ingredients: 1 each Blue, Red, and Purple Mountain Flower
Effect: Restore Health, Stamina, and Magicka 5 points each
Why? Floral teas are really quite lovely.

Red Tea
Ingredients: 1 Snowberries + 1 Dragon's Tongue + 1 Red Mountain Flower
Effects: Resist Fire 10% for 60 seconds
Why? Berry-infused teas are also delightful.

Nirnroot Tea
Ingredients: 3 Nirnroot
Effect: Fortify Health 10 points + Fortify Stamina 10 points + Night Eye for 60 seconds
Why? This is based on Sinderion's Nirnroot elixirs from Oblivion, though my tea doesn't have nearly all of the effects nor the potency of Sinderion's potions. Skyrim does not have a night eye spell or potion, but Khajiit do have a night eye ability, which is what this uses. Now you don't have to be a Khajiit, vampire, or werewolf to see in the dark for a few seconds.

Milk and Honey
Ingredients: 1 Jug of Milk + 1 Honey
Effects: Restore Health 5 points + Cure Poison + Cure Disease
Why? Because when I'm sick, I like to mix honey into hot milk. It soothes a sore throat and makes me feel better. Try it sometime in the real world!

Honey Lavender Dumpling (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: Same as vanilla Lavender Dumpling, except substituting Honey for Moon Sugar.
Effects: Same as vanilla Lavender Dumpling.
Why? Because moon sugar is a gateway drug to skooma. Just say no, kids! (Yes, I grew up in the 1980s. Is it that noticeable?) You can still make lavender dumplings with moon sugar if you want to, as the Hearthfire recipe is untouched. I just added an alternative.

Berry Delight Dumpling (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 2 Snowberries + 2 Juniper Berries + 2 Jazbay Grapes + 1 Sack of Flour
Effects: Restore Health 10 points
Why? No special reason. It just sounds tasty. And yes, grapes are technically berries.

Rabbit Stew
Ingredients: 1 Raw Rabbit Leg + 1 Carrot + 1 Potato + 1 Tomato + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 10 points + Restore Stamina 15 points
Why? Not a lot of meat on a rabbit. Stewing it up with veggies makes a heartier meal.
Bonus: Do you remember way back before the DLCs came out, when all the soups in the game looked exactly the same? Remember how Hearthfire gave us unique, pretty textures for every type of soup? Do you miss the ugly old soup texture? Well, enjoy its return!

Gourd Soup
Ingredients: 1 Gourd + 1 Tomato + 1 Garlic + 1 Leek + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 12 points + Restore Stamina 12 points
Why? There are no vanilla recipes for gourds, so I saw a void to be filled. Yes, it also uses the original ugly soup texture from the Before Hearthfire era.
Bonus: You may notice that this is just the tomato soup recipe with gourd added. I did not notice this until I looked at several real-life gourd soup recipes for inspiration and wrote out my ingredients list. And then I looked at the existing recipes in the game and thought, hey, wait a minute. Oh well.

Cream of Mushroom Soup
Ingredients: 1 Blisterwort + 1 Swamp Fungal Pod + 1 Glowing Mushroom + 1 Jug of Milk + 1 Sack of Flour + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 20 points + Resist Shock 10% for 60 seconds + Fortify Smithing 5% for 60 seconds
Why? First, mushrooms are awesome. Second, the effects are consistent with the alchemical properties of the mushrooms utilized in this recipe.

Chicken Noodle Soup
Ingredients: 1 Chicken Breast + 1 Carrot + 1 Garlic + 1 Chicken's Egg + 1 Sack of Flour + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 10 points + Cure Disease
Why? Where I come from, when someone is sick, you give them chicken noodle soup, as if it were some magic cure-all. So in the game, I decided to let it actually be a magic cure-all. Of course, Skyrim has no noodles, so the idea here is that you're first making the noodles from flour and egg, then making the soup, but I didn't want to make this a two-part recipe, when both parts would be at the cooking pot.

Boiled Clams
Ingredients: 6 Clam Meat + 1 Salt Pile (produces 6 boiled clams)
Effects: Restore Health 2 points
Why? I always seem end up with more clam meat than the other ingredients necessary to make clam chowder, so I wanted another way to cook it. You get back the same number of clams you put in. I figured one salt pile ought to be enough for a whole pot of clams.

Bland Cooked Meat (multiple recipes)
Ingredients: Meat, without the usual salt pile requirement
Effects: Restore Health, but at a lesser effectiveness than the vanilla recipes, so you'll still have a reason to cook with salt when you have it available.
Why? A hunter in the wilderness shouldn't need salt to cook the deer they just killed.
Which meats? Beef, Boar, Chicken, Goat, Horker, Mammoth, Pheasant, Rabbit, Salmon, Slaughterfish, and Venison.
Bonus: Also includes bland steamed mudcrab legs, with no butter requirement.

Savory Cooked Meat (multiple recipes)
Ingredients: Meat, with the usual salt pile, plus two or more additional ingredients.
Effects: Restore Health, with slightly greater effectiveness than the vanilla recipes, and a small buff from the alchemical ingredients used in the seasoning.
Why? Sometimes, you just wanna get fancy.
Which meats? Beef, Boar, Chicken, Goat, Horker, Mammoth, Pheasant, Rabbit, Salmon, Slaughterfish, and Venison.

Fish Soup (multiple recipes)
Ingredients: 1 fish (various types) + 2 or more other alchemical ingredients + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 5 points + Moderate buff from the alchemical ingredients used.
Why? After making so many alchemy-inspired savory meat recipes, I started thinking, what can I do with all these little fishies?
Which fish? Abecean Longfin, Cyrodilic Spadetail, Histcarp, River Betty, Silverside Perch, and Slaughterfish Egg.

Chaurus Pie (two-stage recipe)
Stage 1: Cooked Chaurus Meat (cook at cooking pot/roasting spit)
Ingredients: 1 Chaurus Chitin + 1 Tomato + 1 Honey + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 10 points + Restore Stamina 10 points
Stage 2: Chaurus Pie (bake at Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 1 Cooked Chaurus Meat + 1 Potato + 1 Carrot + 1 Green Apple + 1 Red Apple + 1 Sack of Flour
Effects: Restore Health 15 points + Restore Stamina 15 points
Why? In the in-game book Chaurus Pie: A Recipe, Nils describes the ingredients as "white, thick meat from the midsection" of a chaurus, cooked on a spit and basted with pulped tomatoes, water, peppers, honey and salt. After boiling all that, it is baked in a pie crust with potatoes, carrots, and apples. So cooked chaurus meat is just an intermediate step on the way to chaurus pie. My recipe is not 100% lore-accurate, as some of the ingredients, like peppers and water, do not exist in the game. More problematically, chaurus meat doesn't exist in the game either, which is why I substituted chitin. Just pretend that chunk of chaurus midsection you lopped off the beast has meat inside the shell. Also, since there is no suitable vanilla model for cooked chaurus meat, I just used the chaurus chitin model. I know that does not look very appetizing in your food inventory screen. Pretend it's like one of those fancy crab cakes where the crab meat and other ingredients are stuffed back into the shell and you have to scoop it out to eat it. Or just finish the job and bake it into a pie. It will look much more appetizing that way.

Sunlight Souffle (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 1 Eidar Cheese Wedge + 1 Butter + 1 Jug of Milk + 1 Chicken's Egg + 1 Sack of Flour + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 10 points + Restore Stamina 10 points
Why? This approximates one of the recipes from the in-game cookbook Uncommon Taste. But the Gourmet's recipe includes ingredients not present in the game, like cow's cheese, pepper, and nutmeg, so this is as close as I could get. It's not known what kind of animal Eidar cheese comes from, but since it's unspecified, I'm calling it cow.

Potage le Magnifique
Ingredients: 1 Chicken Breast + 1 Raw Beef + 1 Carrot + 1 Leek + 1 Butter + 1 Sack of Flour
Effects: Restore Health, Stamina, and Magicka 10 points each
Why? This approximates the other recipe from Uncommon Taste as closely as possible, again with some concessions to the limited ingredients actually available in the game. The recipe calls for chicken and beef broths, so I substituted the meats which you'd have to use to make those broths.

Shepherd's Pie (two-stage recipe)
Stage 1: Seasoned Goat Meat Mixture (cook in cooking pot)
Ingredients: 1 Leg of Goat + 1 Garlic + 1 Carrot + 1 Potato + 1 Salt Pile
Effect: Restore Health 10 points
Stage 2: Shepherd's Pie (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 1 Seasoned Goat Meat Mixture + 1 Sack of Flour
Effect: Restore Health 15 points + Cure Disease
Why? Shepherd's pie was available in Oblivion, and it had the cure disease effect when used for alchemy, so I kept that. Classically, real-world shepherd's pie variants usually involve mutton or lamb meat (hence "shepherd's"), but there are no sheep in Skyrim, so I went with goat meat. I know the pie graphic with the criss-cross crust isn't really accurate, but there isn't anything else in the vanilla or DLC models that looks like a mashed-potato crust.

Pheasant Pot Pie (two-stage recipe)
Stage 1: Seasoned Pheasant Meat Mixture (cook in cooking pot)
Ingredients: 1 Pheasant Breast + 1 Potato + 1 Carrot + 1 Garlic + 1 Salt Pile
Effect: Restore Health 8 points
Stage 2: Pheasant Pot Pie (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 1 Seasoned Pheasant Meat Mixture + 1 Sack of Flour
Effect: Restore Health 10 points
Why? There are enough recipes for chicken. Time to do something with that other bird.

Beirock (two-stage recipe, with plain and fancy versions)
Stage 1: Seasoned Beef Mixture (cook in cooking pot)
Ingredients: 1 Raw Beef + 1 Cabbage + 1 Leek + 1 Salt Pile
Effect: Restore Health 10 points
Stage 2, plain version: Bierock (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 1 Seasoned Beef Mixture + 1 Sack of Flour
Effect: Restore Health 15 points
Stage 2, fancy version: Mushroom and Cheese Bierock (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 1 Seasoned Beef Mixture + 1 Mora Tapinella + 1 Goat Cheese Wedge + 1 Sack of Flour
Effect: Restore Health 20 points
Why? They're delicious, and while bierocks are not mentioned in the lore, they are definitely the type of food a true Nord would eat. (See the FAQ for more info.) This uses the model for potato bread, because the visual appearance is actually spot-on.

Reach Rarebit
Ingredients: 1 Raw Rabbit Leg + 1 Eidar Cheese Wedge + 1 Rock Warbler Egg + 1 Ale + 1 Bread
Effect: Fortify Magicka 10 points and Regenerate Magicka 10 points per second for 360 seconds
Why? This is something of a joke, in that Reach rarebit is a rabbit recipe, but real-world Welsh rarebit has no rabbit in it, even though a lot of people think it does when they first hear the name. Anyway, I wanted a rabbit rarebit recipe for my own amusement. Imagine that in Tamriel, rarebit was originally a simple Breton recipe for cheese sauce on toast, and then some Forsworn said, "You know what this needs? Meat."

High Rock Rarebit
Ingredients: 1 Eidar Cheese Wedge + 1 Rock Warbler Egg + 1 Ale + 1 Bread
Effect: Fortify Magicka 5 points and Regenerate Magicka 5 points per second for 360 seconds
Why? After coming up with a backstory to justify the Reach rarebit recipe, I decided I'd better include the "original" Breton recipe it was "based on." Instead of the usual restore health effect, both of the rarebit recipes have effects like a much weaker version of Elsweyr fondue, a vanilla recipe which also uses eidar cheese and ale.

Farmer's Omelette
Ingredients: 1 Chicken's Egg + 1 Bleeding Crown + 1 Goat Cheese Wedge
Effects: Restore Health 2 points + Resist Magic 5% for 60 seconds
Why? Why not?

Pine Thrush Omelette
Ingredients: 1 Pine Thrush Egg + 1 Namira's Rot + 1 Mammoth Cheese Bowl
Effects: Restore Health 2 points + Fortify Lockpicking 5% for 60 seconds
Why? You should be able to make an omelette out of any bird's egg.

Rock Warbler Omelette
Ingredients 1 Rock Warbler Egg + 1 Imp Stool + 1 Eidar Cheese Wedge
Effect: Restore Health 6 points
Why? See above.

Hawk Omelette
Ingredients: 1 Hawk's Egg + 1 Nirnroot + 1 Eidar Cheese Wedge
Effects: Restore Health 2 points + Resist Magic 5% for 60 seconds
Why? Well, I did say any bird's egg. But hawk's eggs are so ridiculously rare, I expect most folks will never get to actually use this recipe, myself included.

Gruel
Ingredients: 1 Sack of Flour + 1 Jug of Milk
Effects: Restore Health 3 points
Why? Maybe your character is really poor. Or maybe you want to punish your follower for jumping in front of a fireball you'd already cast, then complaining about you shooting them in the back. Make them drink flour boiled in milk.

Porridge
Ingredients: 1 Wheat + 1 Honey + 1 Jug of Milk
Effects: Restore Health 10 points + Cure Poison + Cure Disease
Why? A hearty meal using wheat kernels (properly called "wheat berries," as I just learned) instead of flour. The cure disease and cure poison effects are because I already established that in my mod's twisted logic, hot milk and honey cures whatever ails you.

Roasted Ash Hopper (2 recipes)
Ingredients: Ash Hopper Meat or Ash Hopper Leg
Effects: Restore Health 3 points
Why? The Dragonborn DLC adds two edible ash hopper body parts, but no way to cook them. No salt required because if you're desperate enough to eat ash hopper, you probably aren't overly-concerned with seasoning it.

Ash Hopper Stew
Ingredients: 1 Ash Hopper Meat + 1 Ash Hopper Leg + 1 Ash Yam + 1 Garlic
Effects: Restore Health 8 points + Restore Stamina 8 points
Why? I thought this might make ash hopper meat a little more palatable than simply roasting it.

Ham and Yam Soup
Ingredients: 1 Boar Meat + 1 Ash Yam + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 10 points + Restore Stamina 10 points
Why? Something like this seems like it should be a Solstheim staple.


New recipes in version 1.1:

Charred Skeever Meat (vanilla food item, previously uncraftable)
Ingredient: 1 Skeever Tail
Why? Same logic as the version 1.0 recipe for Charred Skeever Hide. Charred Skeever Meat does exist in vanilla, but it's ridiculously rare. (That doesn't mean it's good. It isn't. But there's no logical reason for it to be rare because skeevers are everywhere.) As before, because there is no raw skeever meat item, I substituted the tail. Again, imagine that you're charring the whole skeever, not just chopping off its tail. I would have combined the two skeever recipes, so that one dead skeever yields both meat and hide, but crafting doesn't allow two different created objects, only multiples of the same created object (at least for recipes created within TES5Edit). So when you cook a skeever tail, you have to choose whether to use the recipe for meat or hide. Why no salt requirement? If you're desperate enough to eat skeever, you probably can't afford salt.

Hard Boiled Eggs (multiple recipes)
Ingredients: 1 Bird's Egg (Any)
Effects: Restore Health 2 Points (if using Chicken, Pine Thrush, or Hawk's Egg) or 4 points (if using Rock Warbler Egg)
Why? I just wanted a simpler way to cook eggs, and hard boiling doesn't require any special ingredients beyond the eggs themselves. Rock Warbler Eggs restore more health because they have Restore Health as an alchemical property.

Cheese Omelette (multiple recipes)
Ingredients: 1 Eidar Cheese Wedge + 1 Goat Cheese Wedge + 1 Bird's Egg (Any)
Effect: Restore Health 5 Points (if using Chicken, Pine Thrush, or Hawk's Egg) or 8 points (if using Rock Warbler Egg).
Why? I wanted a simpler omelette, too.

Pheasant Dumpling (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 1 Pheasant Breast + 1 Leek + 1 Garlic + 1 Sack of Flour + 1 Salt Pile
Effect: Restore Health 8 points + Restore Health 1 point for 60 seconds
Why? It's basically the same as the Hearthfire Chicken Dumpling, but with pheasant substituted for chicken. The two restore health effects are copied from the Chicken Dumpling, but reduced in magnitude.

Rabbit Dumpling (bake in Hearthfire oven)
Ingredients: 1 Raw Rabbit Leg + 1 Carrot + 1 Garlic + 1 Sack of Flour + 1 Salt Pile
Effect: Restore Health 6 points + Restore Health 1 point for 60 seconds
Why? Also basically the same as the Hearthfire Chicken Dumpling, but with rabbit and carrot substituted for chicken and leek. A smidge less restore health because the ingredients are more common.

Forest Mushroom Soup
Ingredients: 1 Mora Tapinella + 1 Scaly Pholiota + 1 Garlic + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 8 points + Regenerate Stamina 5 points per second for 360 seconds
Why? Just a simpler mushroom soup recipe, without changing the more complicated Cream of Mushroom Soup recipe. Would you believe there are only two mushrooms you can reliably find in the forests of Skyrim?

Mushroom Soup
Ingredients: 1 White Cap + 1 Fly Amanita + 1 Bleeding Crown + 1 Salt Pile
Effect: Restore Health 8 points
Why? Wanted more uses for all mushrooms. These three mushrooms are alchemically inert together, so no special effects. Specifically, these are all common cave mushrooms, so this is a soup you can make while deep-delving.

Hearty Mushroom Soup
Ingredients: 1 Blisterwort + 1 Imp Stool + 1 Namira's Rot + 1 Salt Pile
Effect: Restore Health 20 points
Why? Alchemically, Blisterwort and Imp Stool would generate a healing potion, so this version restores much more health. These are also common cave mushrooms, so this is another delver's delight.

Hjaalmarch Mudcrab Stew
Ingredients: 1 Mudcrab Legs + 1 Swamp Fungal Pod + 1 Giant Lichen + 1 Salt Pile
Effects: Restore Health 10 points
Why? It makes sense that there would be some regional recipes using only ingredients found in abundance in a given area, whether or not they sound appetizing.

Hot Springs Sweetbitter Tea
Ingredients: 1 Jazbay Grapes + 1 Creep Cluster + 1 Dragon's Tongue
Effects: Weakness to Magic 2% for 30 seconds
Why? The grapes give a burst of sweet, followed by the lingering bitter of the creep cluster. The dragon's tongue adds some subtle floral notes. Why would you drink something that reduces your magic resistance? Not everything we like is good for us. (Also, that's just how the alchemical combination of these ingredients worked out.) These are the three things that are common in the hot springs area of Eastmarch, so people who live in that region would probably make do with what they have readily available.

Creeping Tea
Ingredients: 3 Creep Cluster
Effects: Fortify Carry Weight 5 points for 60 seconds + Damage Stamina Regeneration 2 points for 30 seconds
Why? Seems about as appetizing as Canis Root Tea, so it's got a penalty as well as a buff.

Thistle Tea
Ingredients: 3 Thistle Branch
Effects: Resist Poison 10% for 60 seconds
Why? Thistle tea is a thing that exists in the real world.

Winterhold Tea
Ingredients: 3 Frost Mirriam
Effects: Resist Frost 20% for 60 seconds
Why? At this point, why not, I guess. Yes, Herbal Tea already had Resist Frost. But Skyrim is cold, and there needs to be more than one way to warm up. The concentrated frost mirriam gives this one a more powerful effect.

Witch's Tea
Ingredients: 3 Elves Ear
Effect: Restore Magicka 5 points
Why? Continuing my trend for single-ingredient teas.

Honey Lavender Tea
Ingredients: 3 Lavender + 1 Honey
Effect: Restore Health 5 points + Resist Magic 10% for 60 seconds
Why? This is my current favorite tea in real life.


Optional File (derived from version 1.0, not available with new 1.1 recipes):

By request, I added a version with only the new foods and recipes. Recipes for the normally-uncraftable vanilla foods have been removed from this version. Otherwise, new foods and recipes are unchanged from the full version. If you use the "new foods only" version, you do not need the main file. If you install both, it won't crash your game, but you will have loads of duplicate recipes at your cooking pot and oven. So please, install only one file!


FAQ

Why is it called Frequently Asked Questions when no one has actually asked any questions yet and this is just anticipating things people might ask?

Uh . . . next question.


What are the requirements?

Skyrim: Legendary Edition, or at least Skyrim with Hearthfire and Dragonborn DLCs. If you're only missing Dawnguard, you should still be able to use my mod without any trouble.


How do I install?

Use the mod manager of your choice. Or if you prefer to install manually, drop CookingAndBakingExtended.esp into your Skyrim Data folder. This mod only has one file.


How do I uninstall?

Best practice is to never uninstall any mod from an active game. If you must remove a mod (any mod with an esp or esm file), either roll back to a save file from before you installed that mod or start a new character.

But if you absolutely must uninstall from an active game, then use the same mod manager you used to install it in the first place. Or if you installed it manually, then just delete CookingAndBakingExtended.esp from your Skyrim Data folder.


How thoroughly have you tested this?

I've triple-checked every record in the mod in TES5Edit. I've done focused, systematic in-game tests of every recipe and food item. And I've been using the mod for several weeks in my own playthrough, refining things as I went. It's finished and polished. Of course, it's still quite possible that I missed something, so please do let me know if you encounter any issues.


I don't like the damage stamina effect on the canis root tea.

Use TES5Edit to go into the ingestible record for canis root tea, scroll down to the effects section, and either remove the damage stamina effect or replace it with the positive effect of your choice.

But really, it's only 5 points. Unless you've got some other factor severely damaging your natural stamina regeneration rate, you'll recover before you can blink. You might not even notice the stamina hit, beyond that initial flinch when drinking the tea.


Do the buffs stack?

No, they don't, and that is in accordance with vanilla game mechanics. I can't change it.

A food effect can stack with an alchemy effect, but food effects can't stack with like food effects, and alchemy effects can't stack with like alchemy effects. Some of the foods in my mod use food effects, others use alchemy effects. So you might find a few combinations that do stack, if one item is using the food version of the effect and the other is using the alchemy version. But don't count on it.

Also, a warning: While buffs may or may not stack, negative effects do seem to stack. So if you drink two servings of creeping tea, you'll have double the hit on your stamina regen. Again, this is in the vanilla code, and I can't change it. Sorry.


There are other mods that add {this recipe}, and I like their implementation better.

Yup. There are many, many cooking mods out there. Pick whichever you like best. It's all personal preference.


Why did you ignore the alchemical properties of the salt pile?

I did extensive cross-testing of the ingredient combinations from my recipes at the alchemy bench, to look for unintended side-effects. It turned out that salt wreaked massive havoc in many of my recipes, especially the savory meats and fish soups.

I considered including the negative effects, but I really didn't want that. One bitter tea, I can justify. Half a dozen mildly toxic foods, not so much. However, salt is used extensively in vanilla cooking, and I wanted to preserve the vanilla feel and aesthetic. Also, salt is a perfectly normal ingredient in real soup and meat recipes, and I didn't want to omit this practical and mundane ingredient from recipes for which a reasonable cook would use salt.

So I decided to ignore the alchemical effects of salt, as if it were just a food item with no defined alchemical properties at all, like carrots or butter. The line between cooking and alchemy was already getting blurry in my mod, and this decision solved a lot of my problems. In the end, it's not like vanilla and DLC recipes paid any heed to the alchemical properties of the ingredients, so I don't feel too bad about this. The pseudo-alchemy was fun for me, but I've taken it as far as I wish to.


What's different about your no-salt meat recipes compared to other mods?

My recipes don't replace the existing recipes. You can choose to cook these meats with or without salt.


You're missing some bland and savory meat recipes.

I was planning to include all the meats that exist in the vanilla game, but then I just felt sad at the idea of eating dogs and horses, even fictional characters eating fictional dogs and fictional horses. So my mod has no recipes for dog meat or horse meat. If you want those, you can add them yourself. For me personally, pups and ponies are friends, not food.


You don't have a bland recipe for clams.

You can boil six clams with a single salt pile. Isn't that enough?


In my game, I'm seeing the bland and savory cooked boar meat recipes, but no regular version. What's up with that?

The Dragonborn DLC doesn't actually include any recipes for boar meat. (Although, curiously, there is one single piece of cooked boar meat present in Solstheim, which is where I got the visual model for cooked boar meat.) The recipe for cooked boar meat is added by the Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch (USLEEP).

I didn't add the regular cooked boar meat recipe to my mod because I never play without USLEEP installed, and I didn't want any conflicts or duplicate recipes. So if you need this recipe, either install USLEEP or edit my mod.

Oh, as an aside for those of you who are using USLEEP, did you know that's where your meat pies come from? They aren't in vanilla, and Sorex gives you an apple pie at the Burning of King Olaf Festival, even though he says it's a meat pie. I originally wanted to use the meat pie model for my chaurus pie, and I was quite surprised to discover that it originated in USLEEP. Anyway, that's why my pies all look like an apple pies. I didn't want to make USLEEP a requirement for this mod, so I had to use the only pie model available in vanilla.


You don't have a recipe for honey nut treats.

Alas, there are no nuts in Skyrim. Oblivion had ironwood nuts, but Skyrim has nothing among its food items or alchemy ingredients that qualifies as a nut. I don't know how the Skyrim innkeepers are making these things.

You have three recipes for cheese omelettes.

Technically, there are four, one for each type of bird egg. There are three recipes that produce the exact same "Cheese Omelette" food item, each using a different type of egg (chicken, hawk, or pine thrush). The fourth recipe alone produces the "Perfect Cheese Omelette" because rock warbler eggs are the best. I could have created four different cheese omelette food items, but it didn't seem necessary to differentiate the three that have identical restore health effects and visual appearance. (By contrast, I did make four food items for the different hard boiled eggs because they have different colored shells, and I wanted the end product to match the source.)

You have too many items that cure diseases.

If you have Dawnguard installed, you're probably carrying around about forty pounds of cure disease potions you picked up from dead Vigilants of Stendarr. Cure disease isn't exactly a rare thing in Skyrim. These foods are for people who think a brew made from hawk feathers, mudcrab chitin, and vampire dust sounds disgusting.


I want to bake things in ovens, but I don't want to build a Hearthfire house.

Here are two mods that add ovens to inns all over Skyrim. They conflict with each other, so choose only one:

Baking Skyrim - Ovens in Inns by GrimThor3 -- also adds cooking pots to the inns that didn't already have them. Does not include churns and does not edit player homes.

Ovens and Churns of Skyrim by Omeletter -- also adds ovens and churns to vanilla player homes as well as inns. Does not add cooking pots. (But this mod pairs nicely with More Cooking Pots by DJ_Zephyr.)

Additionally, you can use Solars Portable Crafting by SolarT, which includes craftable, placeable ovens. Plunk an oven down in a mod-added player home or in the middle of a bandit camp, if that's your thing.

Or use console commands to add an oven wherever you like.


What's a bierock?

Seasoned beef, cabbage, and onions baked inside a bread shell. Quite delicious. I originally used the name by which these are more commonly known in Nebraska, but apparently that word has been trademarked by the restaurant chain that made them famous, so I went with the more generic term. Also, because Skyrim has no onions, I substituted leeks.

Yes, this meat-filled pastry is probably Russian in origin, but it spread into Germany and beyond, with variants existing in many cultures under many names. Skyrim is mostly based on Scandinavian influences and aesthetics, but there are substantial German-inspired elements in the game as well, so if there's any place in Tamriel where people eat something resembling bierocks, it would be Skyrim.


I don't think your recipes are lore friendly.

Well, I do think they're lore friendly. I've studied the lore carefully, and I've thought about every single one of these recipes and how it would fit in the world. There is nothing here that isn't reasonable.

However, they aren't all lore based. So if your definition of "lore friendly" means only things that have appeared in previous games or been mentioned in in-game books, then yes, many of my recipes are outside of those bounds. But to me, that definition of "lore friendly" is equivalent to saying that just because you've never seen or heard of a thing, then it can't exist. The real world is full of things I've never personally encountered or heard of, and so it's easy for me to imagine that a fantasy world would likewise have much more to it than we're actually shown in the games.

To me, lore unfriendly foods would be things like bubblegum, cola, taiyaki, tacos, or Texas-style chili. All things I enjoy in the real world, but can't justify existing in Tamriel. My mod is fully compatible with the foods and cultures we see depicted in the game. If you disagree, that's fine. Please just move on and find another mod more suited to your tastes.


Can I give any of these food items to my Hearthfire adopted children?

Yes! Not all of them, of course. But I did select several kid-friendly foods and set them to be gift-able. Specifically, you can give them milk and honey, chicken noodle soup, dumplings, bierocks, pies, and porridge. You can also give them any kind of tea except canis root or nirnroot.

But you can't feed them gruel, and I'm not changing that.


Can you add {complex recipes, leveled list integration, new ingredients, unique models and textures, and what-have-you}?

No. There are many fabulous cooking mods that already do that, so check them out. I really want to keep mine simple, foolproof, and as close to vanilla as possible.


What about {simple recipe with vanilla ingredients}?

As long as it's lore-friendly or at least lore-compatible, ask, and I'll consider it. Also, unless you want it to look like a generic soup, flagon, apple pie, or covered dish, please suggest an alternative visual representation that fits the recipe, using vanilla, Hearthfire, or Dragonborn items.

Also, no cannibalism, no dog or horse meat, and no skooma or moon sugar. I'm sure there are other mods that will add those sorts of recipes for you, but I don't want them in mine. Thanks for understanding.


Are you sure you don't want to add some unique textures? I mean, some of your cooked items (ash hopper and chaurus) don't look cooked at all.

Yes, I'm sure. I don't have Photoshop, NifSkope, or the Creation Kit. And while NifScope and the Creation Kit are free, Photoshop most assuredly is not. Also, with my real-life job and other obligations, I don't really have time to learn to use three new pieces of software just now. That's why I used TES5Edit to make this in the first place.

Besides, it was a fun challenge to do this using only vanilla and DLC models. That's why, for example, the Sunlight Souffle appears as a closed cooking pot. I couldn't find any in-game models that even remotely resembled a souffle, and I spent a fair amount of time pouring through the various foods, alchemy ingredients, and clutter items for options.


Is this compatible with {insert name of other mod}?

It is safe to use alongside any other mod, and it won't directly conflict with anything. At worst, you might have some duplicate/alternate recipes if you use this alongside other cooking mods that add popular things like canis root tea or chaurus pie.

I have not tested my mod with iNeed or any other needs mods, so I don't know if the new food items will be recognized or not. Maybe someone will share their experience in the comments

I also don't know how it plays with sorting mods, because I don't use them.

I can confirm that the items and recipes sort correctly and have appropriate icons in SkyUI.

I will not make patches for mods I don't use, but you are welcome to make and share your own patches.


Will this break my game or corrupt my save files?

No. At least it's not more risky than any other mod that exists, and it's far less risky than most. It's as low-risk as possible.

By design, this is a very simple mod. No scripts. No worldspace edits. No NPC edits. No leveled list integration. No overwrite records. None of the stuff that usually causes trouble or conflicts with other mods. Only new ingestibles and constructible objects using vanilla and DLC assets. There's nothing here that can break a game.

Of course, if you uninstall mid-playthrough, any food items from the mod will vanish.


Will you make a Special Edition version?

No. I tried Special Edition, and it didn't really get its hooks into me. I genuinely prefer Legendary Edition. I don't even have Special Edition installed anymore, and with my brutally slow internet connection, I'm not eager to face a 16-hour download for a game I won't play.

However, I would love it if someone did port this to Special Edition. If that someone might be you, then you have my permission and my thanks! Please just give me credit as the creator, give yourself credit for porting it, and leave a comment to let me know.

Also, I would very much like it if someone were to port this to XBox and PS4. I am aware of the severe limitations Sony has placed on PS4 modding, and this is one of the main reasons I built my mod with purely Bethesda's own vanilla and DLC assets, in the hopes that it might be portable. I don't have a PS4 myself, but to anyone willing to do the porting (which I suspect might have to be a secondary port, from an SSE port) and testing, you have my permission and my thanks! Again, just give me credit and let me know!


This description page and FAQ are ridiculously long. I can't believe I made it to the end.

I can't either, but here you are! Thank you! I hope you enjoy the mod!