I can't be the only one who hates it when Sims go to make food on their own and always make gruel no matter how much food they have available to cook. Are there any mods that make them cook something else if they have the ingredients? It would be less annoying if gruel didn't give a negative focus buff and just a neutral one, but that annoying -5 every time I'm controlling two heroes and don't notice that one has started cooking gruel really bothers me.

As soon as you can, swap the cooking pot for either a spit or the oven. The no-ingredient food for those have no negative buffs. I have to admit, it always annoyed me too that they would go for gruel.

I don't like not having the cook pot because I think they just look nicer and you often need a cookpot to make certain things in quests. But even if you have a cook pot and oven they always go for the gruel instead of the flatbread. I'd rather not get rid of all my cook pots just so they won't eat gruel, but I guess it's the only way it's really annoying.

I have SimRecruit's "TSMFasterCooking+3DaySpoil" mod, and I force my sims to cook several meals at once. You can leave them out "feast-like" or put them in their invy. They will eat whatever is in their invy without being told.

I put my cookpot in the inventory and bring it out just when I need it.