How do I use plates for cooking?

[Freddy]

I have a "White Plate" in my furniture inventory. I wanted to use this plate to make some hash on the grill behind the tenement, but I found no way to actually add the plate to the "grill inventory".
Did I miss a way to use this plate, or are there "furniture plates" and separate "item plates"?

[Nick Wilde the Doppelgänger™]

some meals require plates tp be dropped in the stove / oven or the cooker hot plate. Same with the soup cans. you can only make soups or cornflakes if you have a bowl. So yeah the plates to serve a purpose. The prepared meal is shown on them which can be consumed, leaving you with an empty plate again,

[Freddy]

Originally posted by Nick Wilde the Doppelgänger™:

some meals require plates tp be dropped in the stove / oven or the cooker hot plate. Same with the soup cans. you can only make soups or cornflakes if you have a bowl. So yeah the plates to serve a purpose. The prepared meal is shown on them which can be consumed, leaving you with an empty plate again,

The thing is, I can't put the plate on the stove, I don't have it as an items in my inventory, I have it as furniture. So I can place an plate in my apartment, but I can't use it for cooking. I even tried physically placing it onto a stove, but the game still says that I need a plate.

[Labtop 215]

If it's a furniture plate, then it's decorative basically (even if it's just white). You should try buying cutlery from the one stop shop (regular shop section and not the furniture one). If you can't add the plate to the cooking area, then that plate can't be used for cooking. I know it sounds silly, because all you are doing is putting the food on the plate before eating it but it has to be present in the cooking area as a tool/ingredient the same way you need to have the can opener with the can and the bowl in the cooking area to make soup. It's the same concept basically.