HFC skilling up guide?

I've tried the same recipe again, a few hours later. Got +0.0021 in Cooking 3 times from chopping potatoes, onions and thyme, and +0.0016 for cooking the actual meal, but the difference may be due to the knife having CoC and not the pan, now that I come to think of it.

Also I got +0.0309 to HFC, so it may be time gated like meditation?

high difficulty = no gains or likely to not grant as much. when grinding something consider this and usually going with the lowest difficulty possible is always the best route
start simple, oven and bowls or ovens and frying pans. some prefer pans, some prefer ovens
simple recipe: frying meat or vegs, pan + 1 meat, or pan + 1 veg. result = fried item. fried meat + 1 veg = meal. 2 skill checks, you only clean once
or bowl + 1 item, can be meat or can be veg, result = breakfast
in terms of difficulties, fried is the lowest with 5, breakfast is second with 20, and meal has the higher difficulty, "40"

I got my first 80 or so points basically all the same way. Note this only works in Wurm Unlimited as the skilling rules here are different than Wurm Online. Only number of actions matter.

A forge can hold 99 frying pans. If you only have a couple, make a bunch of low quality ones. If you're lucky, you can do like I did and find a bunch on nearby decaying deeds that have fallen. You may also be able to borrow them from a neighbor.

Get a ton of meat.
Get a ton of vegetables (not required, but means using half as much meat).

Low quality is fine for both.

You want to filet all the meat. This gets you butchering skill. Filet will go into a food storage bin.

Throw one filet in each frying pan. Wait for them to cook. Add one vegetable to each cooked filet. Wait for that to cook into a meal. Now you've gotten two skill 'ticks' from each piece of meat by cooking two things with it.

Dispose of the meals. One trash will hold 100. You can throw them in an altar next to the cooking location and sacrifice them to destroy them. You can leave them in big piles outside to rot. You can leave them in the pen with your pigs if you have any.

Repeat as necessary.

I personally took all the low quality meat I had collected and had it in one food storage bin. I had a second bin set to not sort the contents. I would grab batches of the the meat, filet it till it was all cut up, then throw it into the 'unsorted' bin. I preferred to focus on one activity at a time.

Sleep bonus is helpful. The most efficient way to use it for the cooking part is to fill all of the pans, then turn on sleep bonus and light the forge. You won't need much fuel. Throw in the vegetable as soon as the filet is cooked. When they are all meals, turn off the sleep bonus and the forge.

Remember that since this is just grinding for stuff you're going to throw away, you can use not only low quality food, but also low quality pans, forge, and butchering knife. Just be careful with the butchering knife as you don't want it to build up damage. (It's been a long time, so I don't remember how often I had to repair.)

Also, if you don't have a decent butchering knife, I'm pretty sure I have some ql 70 iron ones on a shelf, so send me a PM on the forum with your character name and I'll mail you one in game.

Ok, nice n' easy.... have 3 satchels...
Fill one with 50 meats, one with 50 small veg (like garlic corn, pretty sure I used corn)... have 50 pans in the oven.
Chop 25 meats and throw them into 25 pans with the range on, while those cook cut up the veg and set to fry too.
By then the meats should be fried, go chopping the next meats while the veg fry.
As the veg become fried, toss them into the pans with fried meat so they become meals and go cutting up the next set of veg.
Third satchel's for the spare meals, or have an altar nearby to sac 'em if taming ain't your thing.

You'll find your own rhythm fast enough and have plenty of meals to level taming on your local pig or bear.