i have a 169 gold mission (so somewhat intermediary in terms of rewards. 360ish is the max i tend to make on hard ones , and around 40-50 on easy ones) that requires 3 seafood salads. Each is 4 hours , and they each require fish , radishes and lettuce. Let's assume i get the mission and i have no lettuce. It would require me at least 2-3 hours multiplying lettuces , and a whooping 12 hours to make the salads.
That is not okay. Salad times need to not be higher then 1h. It makes no sense. Actually , i think plants should be the highest time consumers rather then foods. I'd be okay with that since you can plant multiple plants at once. But food taking 4h per portion is stupidly grindy
edit : welp , i just got the biggest mission i ever saw , around 750 gold , requires 4 watermelon salads (6hours)