I'd draw a clear line at any recipe that takes over 3 hours. But there's a blurrier line before that.
I like that the app tells you it's okay to use boullion and even proposes paste as an alternative. And it tells you when not to use canned tomatoes. So it's not violating this principle.
I think the point is to champion not feeling pressured to do everything from scratch and make things overly difficult. It can be really fun to cook things from scratch, but on thanksgiving with six dishes on the go at once I'm defo using some pepperidge farm stuffing and there's nothing wrong with that.
It also directly contradicts the gold-plated rule. "No, you're not allowed to chop up that potato, you have to buy a tiny and expensive tray of pre-cut vegetables that lasts half as long in the fridge!"
It's a pretty easy UX problem to solve, too, if you're writing recipes manually: just say "one carton of stock (or make your own)" and link to another recipe. If the goal is to teach, why put barriers in front of your students to stop them progressing when they're ready?
This makes no sense to me at all. Where does it stop?
"You didn't use pre-peeled carrots, you're doing this for status" "You actually made shortcrust instead of using pre-made, you're doing this for status" "You made your own pesto, you're doing this for status"
Like, this is just some subjective line you're laying down and I do not see the point