Game servers are always fun! I set up a custom Minecraft modpack and have it set up on my domain. I also run an Arma 3 server, but it’s a hackjob of a self-host solution and I’m ashamed of how it works.

To address your examples directly:

Media server: Jellyfin, along with an *arr stack (Radarr, Sonarr, and qbittorrent and gluetun) to automate everything for you.

Photos app: Immich is your direct Google Photos replacement. Automated uploads, object detection, facial recognition, etc, all ran locally on your machine. Just remember: you still need a proper backup!

Recipe management: Mealie is the best I’ve used. It can import a recipe from almost any website. Very easy to cook with and follow along each step. It also lets you categorize meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), rate your meals, and randomly pick meals for you.

Other things I have going:

Frigate NVR - A couple PoE and wifi cameras set up around the home record everything. Frigate records and timestamps things based on the settings - A person walks up, something loud happens, etc.

MeTube - Rip videos from almost anything. Friend sent you an Instagram video, but you don’t have Instagram? Chuck it into this and it’ll give you the video. Here’s all the websites it supports.