Ah! My apologies then, Ramza. It was a total oversight on my part. That all makes perfect sense.
Coincidentally, I did notice that it wasn't saved like that, too. I did tinker around with your core script a bit to see what I could do to somehow "reset" it to no avail recently and that's when it hit me that them also being independent was exactly what I was missing, haha. Oops.
If you were to look more closely at this weird hybrid situation (albeit outside of your intentions), I would greatly appreciate it for so many reasons including organizational, but I understand if it's not exactly something you want to do. I would also like to say in general how much I appreciate you for providing a top quality plugin--I've been looking for AGES for something like this.
Thanks for saying so. When I first launched it, I wasn't even sure if people would want to use it over the yanfly synthesis one. This was the first plugin I'd made entirely for other people to use, and not for my own use as well. It feels good to get reaffirmation once in a while.
For now, I'd suggest making the ingredients independent items. I'll work on trying to fix it, but progress on that is going to be a little slow as I don't have a lot of time, and I've been using what little time I do have to work on a couple of extensions for this plugin.
Totally understood. If it makes you feel even better, I'll show you a GIF of how I ended up using it before! The biggest reason I chose this over YEP Item Synth. The ability to brand items into families of sorts for multiple recipes to work is absolutely awesome! Being able to run code for the first time allowed me to create a recipe card item to spawn after every first meal prep so I can make it in bulk later, too. Independence or not, this is pretty powerful tool because it encourages the player to experiment much like they could if I tried to go somewhere like Breath of the Wild.
Sorry. I just wanted to gush about it for a moment since I think plugin authors need more good feedback more often, ya? Again, thanks so much! This screen alone breathed so much life into the early game experience. Very cozy! Good luck with your future endeavors! 