I'm thinking of making a mod to expand the cooking-part.
Creating more different dishes to work as an alternative to potions.

Although it'll probably have to wait until the Creation Kit is out, though.

The things I'm thinking of are:

* Make varieties for the dishes, which give different effects
For instance, adding fire salts to a stew to make a spicy stew which gives additional fire resistance.

* Adding more recipes and dishes in general
There could be a lot more dishes to be made from the possible ingredients.

* Possibly later on, maybe even making a full skill out of it including perks.
Improve you gastronomy skill, get cooking perks and make even better stews and such!

* Skill improving items
Let's get some proper use for that chef's hat! And who wouldn't want to have steel gauntlets of major gastronomy?

* Maybe making some more varieties of ingredients
Different ingredients, with slightly recoloured textures (akin to red apples<>green apples)

So, what do you think of it?
I'm open for suggestions and ideas!

Out of curiosity, do you play EQ2?

Sounds like some pretty cool ideas. If several of those could be accomplished, it would be handy to use as a template for even more crafting skills in the future.

I don't know what EQ2 is. But I do like cooking in general

Ah LOL okay. It's EverQuest 2. Your idea sounded a lot like the crafting system in that game, Provisioning in particular. Provisioners are the chefs of EQ2. I really enjoy the crafting system in that game, particularly the vast number of recipes. I would love to see if something similar to that (not necessarily the HOW you craft, but the WHAT you can craft) implemented here.

I would love to see something like this. Molecular gastronomy is a seemingly natural result of alchemy being such a wide study on Nirn, and frankly now that I think about it there should be a much larger focus on it, what with combining magical ingredients for consumption being potentially deadly and all. The only thing I can recall hearing about as a result of such intentional making in an Elder Scrolls game is Shadowbanish Wine in Oblivion, though. I'd think that if we can't add skills in the game (and I suspect we won't be able to), it should be tied in with alchemy because really, wouldn't they be one in the same on Nirn? Come to think about it, a second skill would perhaps be redundant.