Just a question for if anyone else has thought of this: Could the vat for the oven be improved a bit to function a bit more as a progress milestone?
It does shorten the recipes for cooked rice, all be it not greatly with the necessity that you have the exact amount of water in the vat.
It could be used to make soups in 10x the amount or to maybe improve soups so you can add extra ingredients. This would make soups either much more time efficient to craft and/or make them a better food source.