So, the main tips I always throw out are: this is a game where you have to make your own fun, because the updates are few and far inbetween. The weekly posts are automated, the quarterly event posts are mostly automated with the exception of adding new images, and the devs are not interested in interacting with the community outside of that. What we get, when we get it, who knows. The main mod stepped down and we don't have a replacement, so comms are dead in the water until/if that changes.
Re: food. There is no pressing need to involve yourself in cooking complex recipes. Per minute and per slot, cooking raw fish and meat beats any of the complex recipes because they take up a bunch of slots and still get you one item. If they gave you more than one item, which would be appropriate for the amount of slots consumed, it'd be different, but alas. We work with what we got. The exception is if you enjoy the farming minigame, then it becomes efficient to cook the meals they want, so you have to babysit the mobile game timer less often.
Farming itself is fine, mostly useful once you unlock carrots and nuts, which are better used feeding the dogs raw than cooking for the reasons outlined above.
Oootherwise, the best way to make moonstones (after you hit the easy achievements) is farming knucklebone tokens. To do this, you put 1 basidio companion and 1 1-hour pebble generating companions on your wolves. After the companions hit level ten, the pebble generators will make it so you don't lose money when playing with Nana. When the wolves hit level 10, you release them for the KB token. You can sell those for moonstones. It's not a FAST process, per se, but doing it that way means you aren't wasting food trying to farm up levels in Campaign early on, when you aren't drowning in food yet. At some point it will become worth it to keep the bear NPC fishing a few times a day, and then you'll have more stamina than you can ever spend, even during the quarterly holidays. The next holiday isn't until January, so you have a month and change to get started on all that to prepare for it.