Well, what ingredients are they? He can go out searching! And also apple-picking; he's hungry.

The missing ingredients are blurred out in the ingredients list, but he could try asking the forest spirit.

He's definitely going to do that.

"Hi again! I'm going to go get more food, maybe some apple seeds to plant near here. Do you know what ingredients I can get while I'm out that will let me make more things?"

{am not crafting expert,} it says. {think maybe glass? can make glass from sand in furnace. water spirit is crafting expert! can find in ocean, ask about make thing!}

"Sounds like I should take a trip to the beach, then!" It occurs to him that weird geography is weird, so he adds, "Can I get to the ocean by walking downstream along the river?"

{can get to ocean any way! is island.}

"Hah! Fair enough, you got me there." He heads out towards the river anyway, because he has some tree-related experiments to try. Starting with picking all the apples off an apple tree and cutting it down with his pickaxe. He's going to feel really dumb if this doesn't result in seeds, so he doesn't go for the closest one to his house.

The pickaxe takes an unexpected number of bops to take down the tree, and might be an inefficient tree-bopping tool, but once he has the tree down he gains... one apple seed, plantable like an acorn. And a bunch of wood that is different from the other type of wood and does not stack with it, but can be used in all the same recipes; his handcrafting recipes now distinguish between {oak wood} and {apple wood}.

Darn, he had been hoping for two. Well, he can bring the seed and the apples he doesn't immediately eat back to base, plant the former and offer the latter to the forest spirit. Also, crap, he should have left one apple on the tree when he cut it down to see if he would get it or it would just vanish or what. Lessons for next time.

It's a good thing apples can be stacked in Tiny Item form because he got quite a few off that tree.

The spirit is pleased with the apples and decides to decorate its room with one, right in the middle.

That's really cute. "I take it you don't eat? Also, do you know how long the apples will stay edible if we keep them tiny?"

{apple not stop being edible! edible is how apple.}

"What, never? Even if you keep it large? Huh!" That has fascinating microbiological implications and he really hopes the bacteria he brought here on his skin don't rampage across the ecology like a horde of tiny X-Men.

It nods its round little self.

"That's really neat! I'm going to head down to the beach now. . . . You might be able to ride on my shoulder if you want to come along."

It hops delightedly up and down. {yes please!}

"Okay then!" Attempted scoop? If the spirit is made of solid teak he's going to regret this later.

The spirit is very scoopable, and seems to be made of a light enough wood that it's no worse than, say, carrying a small-to-medium-sized textbook. If textbooks had pointy little limbs with which to balance themselves carefully on his shoulder.

Excellent. This is easier than a backpack full of crap and a lot cuter to boot. And they're off! In a new direction this time, so they can do some exploring on their way to the beach.

Let us designate this direction arbitrarily as 'south'.

South of the forest, he finds another river, or maybe just a different section of the same one; and across that river is a sandy desert, dotted with cacti. On the far side of the desert, a purple-grey haze is visible on the horizon. It looms in a way that suggests a mountain, or maybe just an especially aggressive hill.

"Oh, neat, a desert. Do you know anything about deserts, or just forests?"

{desert is different from forest! have different night monster, different ground, different tree! tree is cactus and plum, and ground is sand and sandstone, and night monster is parched zombie.}

The spirit leans forward a little, balancing carefully, and squints past the desert at the hazy hill.

{i think is shadow forest over there. screaming trees. scary place.}

"Yeah no let's not go to the place with the screaming trees. I do want some sand though, and some plums.  And possibly some of whatever can be acquired from cacti." He crosses the river as before, digs up a bunch of sand (careful not to unbalance his passenger) and ruthlessly axe-murders a cactus.

The cactus yields Tiny Item cactus cylinders, any of which can apparently be replanted as smaller cacti which will presumably grow up into larger ones later. They also appear as alternative woods in wood-related recipes. The sand appears to be ordinary sand.

{oh!} says the forest spirit. {can make bucket from metal, carry sand!}

And indeed, he has a handcrafting recipe requiring {1 tin}. There's another one that needs two, but it's the first one that comes to mind when the spirit mentions it.

Bucket get! Does sand not come in tiny quantity-of-sand form, then?