Project Cook [B42]

Project Cook — Build 42.10–42.22.2 | SP / MP

Project Cook brings vanilla-style cooking into a dedicated, scalable interface. Prepare meals from base items and ingredients, manage nearby cooking appliances, and browse regular crafting recipes — without replacing the game's underlying cooking rules.

Requirements & Load Order

Requires [B42] NeatUI Framework. Load in this order:

• [B42] NeatUI Framework — required

• Project Cook

• Project Cook Pixel Icon Pack — optional; load after Project Cook

Base Cooking — Evolved Recipes

Prepare soups, stews, salads, sandwiches, burgers, stir-fries, pasta dishes and other vanilla evolved recipes.

• Select a base item or let Project Cook find a compatible one.

• Browse ingredients and seasonings in your inventory, equipped bags and nearby containers.

• Double-click an ingredient or press + to queue an addition.

• Expand grouped item stacks, choose individual items, and transfer whole stacks where supported.

• Fill supported containers from nearby water sources; empty supported recipe containers and recover the container.

• Rename prepared food and inspect available cooking and nutrition information.

Choose the food you actually want to use. Items can be distinguished by Fresh / Stale / Rotten, Raw / Cooked / Burnt, and Frozen / Thawed states. Full portions are separated from partial leftovers.

Control ingredient usage with three portion policies: Full portions only, Full portions first or Partial portions first. Amount filters show all items, intact items, items with at least one full portion, or partial portions only. Nearly depleted seasonings are handled to avoid invalid leftover values.

Filters, Sorting & Nutrition

Filter by food state, including frozen, stale, rotten and burnt items, or show compatible ingredients that are currently unavailable. Sort by hunger, thirst, boredom, unhappiness, weight and known nutrition values.

Nutrition detail follows Cooking skill:

• Level 2: categories

• Level 4: rough values

• Level 6: closer estimates

• Level 8: exact values

• Nutritionist: full details and nutrition sorting

Cooker — Work in Progress

Manage supported nearby ovens, microwaves, barbecues, fireplaces and campfires. Depending on the appliance, turn it on or off, change settings, add fuel, handle propane tanks and move food between the cooker and containers. All Containers helps you browse food nearby.

The vanilla inventory and loot panels remain available.

Cooking By Recipes — Work in Progress

Browse regular crafting-style cooking recipes, including dishes such as Saucepan with Pasta or Saucepan with Rice. These can also be made through vanilla Crafting or Neat Crafting.

Recipe data is cached to reduce repeated processing with large mod lists. Controller navigation in this tab is still being improved.

Interface, Controller & Local Co-op

• Scalable UI (80–200%), adjustable text size, opacity and title-bar placement.

• Separate pinning and auto-collapse settings for the main window and Settings.

• Persistent window position, including per-player positions for local split-screen co-op.

• Controller navigation and focus indicators in supported panels; further refinements are planned.

• Expandable item stacks, clearer stack arrows and improved list/focus retention.

• Scrollable Settings window with accessible Reset Defaults.

Ctrl+B opens or closes Project Cook. You can rebind it through the game's Key Bindings menu.

Frozen Food Option

The sandbox option Allow cooking with frozen food is off by default. When enabled, Project Cook permits frozen ingredients in Base Cooking and Cooking By Recipes without thawing them first. This only bypasses the thawing restriction for Project Cook actions; the items remain frozen.

Performance, Builds & Languages

Caching and targeted UI refreshes reduce repeated scans of containers, ingredients and recipes. Item transfers use vanilla timed actions where applicable for safer MP behavior.

Project Cook has been reviewed against Build 42.22.2; compatibility handling is retained for earlier supported Build 42 versions. It includes translations for all 28 supported languages, reviewed against vanilla terminology where applicable.

Compatibility & Support

Project Cook relies primarily on vanilla evolved recipes, crafting, inventory and cooking actions. Mods that register ingredients through vanilla evolved recipes should generally be detected automatically; other recipes may appear in Cooking By Recipes, vanilla Crafting or Neat Crafting.

• Guide & FAQ

• Questions & Bug Reports

• Suggestions & Features

For bug reports, include your PZ and Project Cook versions, SP / MP Host / Dedicated mode, mod list and load order, steps to reproduce, and the first relevant error/stack trace.

Credits

• Original mod by Rocco: Workshop items

• Build 42 maintenance by Afyrmo: Workshop items

• Pixel icons / inspiration by ivmakk

More Mods & Support

Enjoy the mod! If you would like to support the work and your circumstances allow, a coffee is appreciated.

Workshop ID: 3490188370 Mod ID: Project_Cook Mod ID: Project_Cook_Pixel_Icon_Pack