So the Irish foodies cookalongs are now up and running, regular amd much looked forward to. What are these magical mysterious cookalongs, you may ask? Why I shall tell you good sirs!

Once upon a time, there was an internet land far far too good at wasting my time called ‘Twitter‘. One blustery day coming into summer (raining of course), many of the twitter friends and I got into a discussion about home made pizza, and how lovely and simple it was, and how much better it tasted than the horrid wicked old store bought pizza of convenience store land. Thus we decided to have a pizza party! However being spread out all over the emerald isle, we decided that we should all cook the pizzas in our respective homes, and post menus/updates/pictures of the process on twitter and perhaps even facebook. Then a wonderful wizardly food pic posting italian foodie piped in and mentioned she could give out a wee prize to the best pizza! How excited all the Irish foodies were. Well the day was had and pizzas galore were made. People flocked from all around the internet to take part in the cookalongs, and we all had ever so much fun and adventure!

Ahem. Story telling mode is getting old.

It worked out so well that we decided to be rather naughty and do a cookie party next month, and then it was a tradition so we have one every month! Kristin and Sarah (me) took over the organisation of the whole cookalong process. Kristin had the genius idea of a facebook page and we eventually got ourselves a twitter account @irecookalongs. Each month we found/find an ever so generous judge who is always happy to look through everyones delicious posts and picks (and it is a darn hard task let me tell you) out the winner in their opinion. Ill give you a breakdown of the themes and winners below, but first:

What do you/I do to take part?

The idea is that anyone and everyone is welcome to participate in our informal cookalongs, which take place on the first Friday of every month. Every month we pick a different theme, and a judge/sponsor picks their favourite entry and donates a small prize to make it a little more fun. All you have to do is cook up a storm, tweet/facebook update or comment on a post I’ll start on the day about what you’re cooking, and hopefully post your blogged recipe links on the Facebook page or email them to me at irecookalongs(at)gmail.com

1. Pizza party June 2010

Winner:  Gluttony for beginners as picked by Italian foodie (La Cucina)#

2. Cookie party July 2010

Winner: Likemamusetobake as picked by Theresa from The green apron

3. Seafood August 2010

Winner: Smorgasblog as picked by Goatsbridge

4. Vegetarian Sept 2010

Winner: Heypesto as picked by Mary from Cafe Fresh

5. Autumn fruits Oct 2010

Winner:  Babaduckbabbles as picked by David Llewellyn from Llewellyn’s Orchard Produce!

6. Winter warmers Nov 2010

Winner: Babaduckbabbles as picked by Cully&Sully (On a roll she is!)

7. CHRISTMAS Dec 2010 (Sorry I loved that one!)

Winner: To be picked by Easy food magazine (Great judges aren’t they! People are truly great)

8. Budget/Leftovers kicking off Jan 2011

Winner: To be chosen by Donal Skehan

9. Food for romance (forgive me :))

Take a look at some of the beautiful photos uploaded to our facebook page here

So now that that’s all explained to ye, how about a new challenge. Head over to this post where we’re asking you to choose the next theme for the cookalongs by leaving a comment. In a weeks time we’ll put suggestions in a poll where we can vote for our favourites and that will be the theme for March. Woohoo! Just thought I’d throw that in there. Well off I go for now, in early in the morning and have a fierce amount of work to do!