Foodie Events - January 2012

Family Friendly Fridays

Hosting Blog:
Fabulicious Food

Theme: Family Meals

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: every Friday


Event Name:I am finally starting to get this house in order! You may have noticed that for the past few weeks, I have been posting a Family Friendly Recipe each Friday and today I am opening this up as a new blog event here on Fabulicious Food! I’ve added all my previous posts to get us started. I may be the only one entering, but I hope not!

Details can be found here







Event Name:
Simple and in Season

Hosting Blog:
Fabulicious Food

Theme: In season - January

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

All you have to do is come up with a dish using any seasonal produce you like (savoury or sweet) post it on your blog. You can take inspiration from anywhere – adapt a recipe from your favourite cookbook, try something from a magazine, make up your own creation or share a family favourite. Include any seasonal produce you fancy including fruit, veg, herbs, meat or fish.

Details can be found here







Event Name:
No Croutons Required

Hosting Blog:
Lisa's Kitchen

Theme: Black-Eyed Peas

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 20 January 2012

The challenge this month is to come up with a soup or salad featuring Black-Eyed Peas. This popular legume is thought to bring good luck and prosperity if served for New Year's dinner, especially along with collard greens.

Details can be found here







Event Name:
My Legume Love Affair

Hosting Blog:
Chez Cayenne

Theme: Legumes

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

Fresh or dried beans, lentils, pulses, and/or the sometimes edible pods that contain these seeds, and derivative products like tofu or besan/chickpea flour all come under "legumes". Even tamarind, fenugreek, carob, peanuts, etc. are among some of the other edible plants in the legume family which are included in this event. MLLA is really about legumes of any sort as the main draw. In short, I accept an entry as long as the recipe showcases the legume primarily but not as an auxiliary ingredient.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Flavors of Tamilnadu

Hosting Blog:
Sweet Karam Kapi

Theme: Food of Tamilnadu (India)

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012


I am starting this new event, Cooking Challenge Series, and to start with The Flavors of Tamilnadu.
Chettinad cuisine hails from the deep southern region of Tamil Nadu. Chettinad cuisine is far from the cuisine of traditional Tamilian Brahmins—it is one of the spiciest, oiliest and most aromatic in India. And other types are Nanjil cuisine, Nellai cuisine, Kongu cuisine, Pandi Cuisine or Iyengar cuisine are some to be mentioned.
So, lets cook from the flavors of Tamilnadu. It could be the usual sambar, satha-amudhu, or yenna kathirikai. Anything that belongs to the Tamilnadu cuisine.

Details can be found here







Event Name:
Veggie/Fruit of the Month-Cucumber

Hosting Blog:
Ambrosia

Theme: Cucumbers

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 15 January 2012


So cucumber that has so many benefits, should definitely feature in our kitchen! The dish can be anything -muffins, rice dishes, fired, chutneys or juice but with cucumber as main ingredient. The dish can be any course of the meal. (starters / main dish / beverage etc)The recipe can be veg or non veg, eggs are allowed in baking.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Kids Delight

Hosting Blog:
Kids Delight

Theme: Colourful Healthy Food

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 15 January 2012

Have you seen That kids are attracted towards colours!!I am sure even we are and what better way than "COLOURS" to entice the lovely little kiddos to eat healthy food. Have you tried using natural healthy vegetables, fruits to make something colourful for your kids and see them grab it???I have !!!

Put your thinking caps on...Cook/bake or even make salads/smoothies anything which is colourful and healthy to attract your kid.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Bookmarked Recipes

Hosting Blog:
Tinned Tomatoes

Theme: Recipes you have collected

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 28 January 2012

If you are anything like me, you collect recipes right left and centre and rarely get around to using them. That is what this challenge is all about, to encourage us to use some of those unused recipes.

You may post recipes you have bookmarked from magazines, tv programmes, websites or blogs..... Please credit the author of the recipe.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Random Recipes

Hosting Blog:
Belleau Kitchen

Theme: Random Recipes - New Year, New Book

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

... so let us kick it off in wonderful style with a nice and easy Random Recipe challenge... New Year... New Book is all about cooking something random from your newest cookbook... I realise we've done something similar before but the concept is a moveable feast for everyone and seeing that I could, with impunity, guess that we all received at least one new cookbook for Christmas, it shouldn't be too hard to want to join in...

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Anyone Can Cook

Hosting Blog:
Taste of Pearl City

Theme: Weekly Event to Encourage New Cooks

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: every Friday

* For beginners
* With less ingredients
* With minimum amount of time spent

Your recipe doesn't have to fall under all these categories, if it falls under any one of the categories that's enough. I'll also explain about each category separately.

Details can be found here





Event Name:
Invite a Blogger to your Table

Hosting Blog:
More Than Burnt Toast

Theme: Try a recipe with a blogger friend

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: ongoing

Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to "Invite a Blogger to Your Table"! This is a fun event and an outlet for us each to challenge ourselves and create stronger bonds within the blogging community. Nothing is more intimate, or more effective at creating friendships than cooking and sharing meals together, even it is virtually. But hey, if you live in the same area as another blogger what's to stop you from gathering in your own kitchen for this challenge.

Choose a dish to prepare and invite 1(one) blogger to create that dish with you. You can source your recipe from a cookbook, magazine, blog or any other source. Your dish can be sweet or savoury; easy or complicated.

Decide upon a date that you can both mutually post your recipe within a 4 week time frame.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Gutsy Cooks

Hosting Blog:
Sweetbites
Theme: The Illustrated Kitchen Bible by Victoria Blashford-Snell

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 December 2013

A weekly cook-a-long for those that want to be Gutsy! in the kitchen cooking from The Illustrated Kitchen Bible by Victoria Blashford-Snell.

Every week a menu is posted and Gutsy cooks choose to cook 1, 2 or all dishes posted in the menu. Then you blog about your experience every Sunday night. Come and cook along with this fun group - be Gutsy!

Details can be found here





Event Name:
Black and White Wednesday

Hosting Blog:
The Well-Seasoned Cook

Theme: Black and white photography

Event Date: Every Wednesday

Black and White Wednesday, a new culinary photo event which will run weekly and feature food-related imagery. Your photo/s need not be of actual food, but can also be the preparation, presentation, and consumption of it.

Participation couldn't be easier. You don't need a story nor a recipe nor a location. There will be no competing, curating, nor critiquing. The only requirement is that you post your black and white photo/s on any Wednesday, mentioning Black and White Wednesday and linking to this announcement

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Daring Bakers & Daring Cooks

Hosting Blog:
The Daring Kitchen

Theme: Check website on reveal date.

Daring Bakers Reveal Date: 27th January 2012
Daring Cooks Reveal Date: 14th January 2012

The Daring Kitchen is the home of The Daring Bakers and The Daring Cooks. The premise of both groups is to create one recipe each month, given to us by a monthly host. We all create the same exact recipe and then post about it on our personal blogs on a designated date.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Presto Pasta Nights

Hosting Blog:

Week One: Once Upon A Feast (PPN #245 January 6)
Week Two: Fuss Free Flavours(PPN #246, January 13)
Week Three: Cook, Craft, Enjoy (PPN #247, January 20)
Week Four: Souperior (PPN #248, January 27)

(Ruth is looking for hosts, if you would like to host Presto Pasta Nights, just follow the link on the side panel)

Theme: Pasta

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: : every Thursday for inclusion on the Friday roundup

Every week food bloggers around the world photograph and write about their latest pasta creation… if it’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner; served hot or cold; spicy or sweet; from appetizers to mains to desserts, you’ll find it in the roundup published every Friday with links and photos to all the posts.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Cake of the Week

Hosting Blog:
Casa Costello

Theme: Cake

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: every week (use the linky)

Calling all cake fanatics and baking lovelies! How do you fancy showing off your creations each week?

I post each Sunday evening my Cake of the Week and invite you to do the same.
Add your blog post link to the linky underneath my Cake of the Week post and lets admire each other’s creations.

You do not need to be a professional cake decorator – it doesn’t even have to be a decorated cake – just one that you have posted about that week.

Details can be found here







Event Name:
Weekend Herb Blogging

Hosting Blog:
Cook Almost Anything

Theme: Herbs, Fruit, Flowers, Plants or Vegetables

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: every Friday

Hosting Blog: Would you like to host? Haalo is also looking for hosts. Check out the sidebar for details.


Each week food bloggers around the world post recipes about cooking with herbs and unusal vegetables or interesting ways to use vegetables, and on the weekend, we publish a Recap with links to all the posts.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Teatime Treats

Hosting Blog:
Lavender & Lovage

Theme: Sweet Pastries & Breads

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 28 January 2012

Tea Time Treats is a monthly blogging event that showcases treats from our favourite meal of the day: teatime! Hosted alternate months by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Bakes, each challenge involves a style of bake or popular teatime ingredient. All teatime treats, whether sweet or savoury, breads, pies, pasties, cakes, tarts, desserts, conserves or biscuits (plus many, many more!) will be featured over the coming months. This month’s theme is Sweet Pastries & Breads

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Taste & Create

Hosting Blog:
Taste & Create

Theme: Trying recipes from a given blog

Event Sign Up Date: 8th of the month
Event Deadline: 24th of the month

Taste&Create was started as a food event by Nicole from For the Love of Food. It’s whole purpose was, and has been, to create a community of bloggers who test each others’ recipes and share links. It has also been to help new and not so well known bloggers get their foot in the door of the foodie community.

Sign up and you will be given a blog to work with. Just post one of their recipes to join in.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Vanilla Bean Paste Giveaway

Hosting Blog:
Cook Eat Delicious

Theme: Giveaway (worldwide)

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 4 January 2012

Here is your chance to win a bottle of Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Bean Paste. This stuff is delicious, giving your food and baked goods such a depth of vanilla flavor. I love to use it for baking and since it is a paste I can add more vanilla to my recipes without it thinning out. I am sure you will love this Vanilla Bean Paste as much as I do.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
We Should Cocoa

Hosting Blog:
Chocolate Teapot

Theme: Health Conscious

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 25 January 2012

No doubt some of you will have made some kind of resolution when the bell's rang out. Maybe to be more organised or to see family and friend's more often? Get fit perhaps? Loose weight even? Well, if the last one is on your radar at all you may just love this month's We Should Cocoa Challenge, no key ingredient (apart from chocolate of course!) or baking method, just a very broad and general theme. To take part all you need to do is submit a recipe that is health conscious - whatever that may mean to you! It is possible to use chocolate in a health concious way, I promise.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Celebrating Street Foods

Hosting Blog:
Tomato Blues

Theme: Street Foods

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

My event is all about cooking street foods in our own kitchens nice, clean and hygienic. You can make any dish that reminds you of eating on the streets. For me its always gol gappe and tikki poori on the streets of Bangalore. You can make anything from chaat in our style or sandwiches famous on the Mumbai Roadsides or even Dim Sums from the oriental.
Okay!! Now the exciting part. At the end of this event, i shall choose one winner for the giveaway of the book Street Foods by Sanjeev Kapoor.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Breakfast Club

Hosting Blog:
Food je t'Aimee

Theme: The January Detox

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

"Breakfast Club: Because breakfast should be more interesting than
tea & toast or coffee & cereal."

It's that time of year, friends. Yep - we all ate too much over the holidays and are now struggling to keep that top button closed, right? Feeling mighty over-indulged? Hmm? Perhaps even guilty? I know I am.

Thus, I present to you this month's theme: The January Detox.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Chocolate Lover

Hosting Blog:
Daily Cuppa

Theme: Valentine's Day

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 15 February 2012

Our infatuation with chocolate first began 2,000 years ago when it was discovered in Latin America. The Maya and Aztec elites infused cocoa beans with water to form frothy chocolate drinks – the first frappuccinos, if you will – for special occasions and as sacrifices to the gods. The Aztec ruler Montezuma believed that chocolate was an aphrodisiac and routinely drank it before entering his harem, thus increasing chocolate’s popularity and its association with love and romance. As it turns out, he was ahead of his time. Modern-day scientists have linked the chemical phenylethylamine in chocolate to feelings of excitement, attraction and even pleasure. So, in conjunction with the coming Valentine's Day 2012.....I am organizing my first event and its called 'Chocolate Lover'.............

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Innovative Pakwan

Hosting Blog:
Dashami's Collection

Theme: Vegetarian dishes (no egg)

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 15 January 2012

Participants must submit only vegetarian recipes. Any vegetarian dish is allowed.No egg should be included. new entries and innovative entries are preferred.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Lets Cook With Leftovers

Hosting Blog:
simply.food

Theme: Leftovers

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

This event is all about being creative and using up leftovers and giving them a new dimension by preparing a new dish with them in order to avoid food wasteage.
To participate in this event you must prepare any dish using leftovers. You can add other ingredients to your dish to complete it .Only vegetarian dishes allowed although eggs are permitted.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Frugal Food Fridays

Hosting Blog:
Fuss Free Flavours

Theme: Frugal Cooking

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: every Friday

Now Christmas has past, and January seems a very long month, let’s let Frugal Food Fridays begin in ernest!

Some themes for money saving ideas that I have thought up are:

Dishes using cheaper ingredients – cheap cuts of meat or vegetarian
Meals using leftovers
Meals using up the ends of packets
Substitutions of cheaper ingredients
Packed lunches
Meals that use less energy to cook
Pressure cooking
Slow cooking
Faster cooking – less oven time for example
Batch cooking for the freezer
Using Sustainable foods
Food you have grown yourself
Meals from reduced food in the supermarket

Details can be found here







Event Name:
Virtual Valentines Craft and Bake Competition

Hosting Blog:


Theme: Valentines Day

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 4 February 2012

This is just for fun competition showcasing photographs and blog posts from insanely clever crafters and bakers like you. Be as creative as you like there are no hard and fast rules. If you believe in Mayan predictions there will not be another one as the World is going to end in 2012 so this could be your last chance!

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Sweet Heat

Hosting Blog:
Food, Football and a Baby

Theme: (East) Indian food

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 29 January 2012

this month's theme makes it really simple to have chilli in your recipe, as its that perennial spicy favourite, (East) Indian food. Indian food is one of the most popular cuisines in the world with reason. It can be hot and spicy, or with just a hint of heat and a myriad of spices. Hot, spicy and comforting, what more do we wish for? Any way you look at it, you cannot go wrong with it, especially after a month-long orgy of sweets, chocolates and decadent desserts.

Details can be found here







Event Name:
Love Lock with Sweets

Hosting Blog:
Killer on the Plate

Theme: Dessert (Vegetarian and no eggs)

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 15 February 2012

"Love Lock with Sweets celebrates some of the sweetest joys of life."
For participation, send in ANY dessert! Only it should be suitable for vegetarians and preferably have no eggs.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Cook.Eat.Delicious - Desserts

Hosting Blog:
Veggie Platter

Theme: Fresh Produce

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

"Life without Desserts is no life at all! Desserts create smiles, laughter, and sweet aromas that fill the house with deliciousness. This Month's Food Blog Event & Giveaway, “Cook.Eat.Delicious-Desserts!” is featuring the theme of Fresh Produce. Cook up your favorite dessert or challenge you to try something new! Runs for the whole month of January."

Details can be found here






Event Name:
New U

Hosting Blog:
Vardhini's Kitchen

Theme: Healthy Recipes

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

It is the new year and are you making changes in your food for a new "U"? So friends for this event, I am inviting everyone to link up anything you consider healthy. It can be sweet, savory, etc., any part of the meal, any cuisine, any mode of cooking, basically anything vegetarian. (Eggs are allowed in baking.)

Details can be found here





Event Name:
Healing Foods

Hosting Blog:
Vardhini's Kitchen

Theme: Cauliflower

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 31 January 2012

I am happy to be guest hosting Siri's Healing Foods event for January 2012 with theme "Cauliflower". Growing up cauliflower was one of my favorite veggie and I loved to eat it in any form, even raw. Send in any vegetarian dish using cauliflower. Eggs are allowed in baking. There is a giveaway for this event.

Details can be found here





Event Name:
Bumper Total Giveaway

Hosting Blog:
Pebble Soup

Theme: Giveaway (UK only)

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 22 January 2012

Sticking to a healthy New Year's resolution has suddenly been made much easier with this bumper give-away. The first of the year.
Pebble soup has teamed up with TOTAL Greek Yoghurt to give one reader the chance of winning a healthy start up pack.
The lucky winner will receive:
A Month’s supply of Greek Yoghurt that will include a selection of 0%, 2% and Classic TOTAL Greek Yoghurt, as well as TOTAL 0% Greek Yoghurt Split Pots in honey, blueberry, strawberry and tropical fruit.
But carefully managing the fat intake is not enough so TOTAL has thrown in:
a yoga mat,
a reformer and
2 x 0.5kg hand weights.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Bake Your Own Bread

Hosting Blog:
Girlichef

Theme: Bake your own bread

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 29 January 2012

BYOB is a monthly event that encourages you to start (or continue) getting comfortable baking bread in your own kitchen. Anything from simple quick breads to conquering that fear of yeast to making and nurturing your own sourdough starter. All levels of bakers are welcome to participate. It's simple- just bake some bread, buns, rolls, biscuits, sweet rolls, etc. Blog about them like your normally would...and then, by a designated day each month, send your link over to me. I will do a roundup on the last day of each month showcasing everybody's efforts.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
Wellness Weekends

Hosting Blog:
Diet, Dessert & Dogs

Theme: Healthy Vegan Recipes

Event Start Date: 8:00 PM EST Thursdays
Event Deadline: 12:00 midnight EST Mondays

What: whole foods, no refined flours/sugars, vegan recipes posted
within the previous week.
--There's a linky on my blog that people can link up. Five entries
are featured the following week.

Details can be found here






Event Name:
River Cottage Rocks

Hosting Blog:
Jo's Kitchen

Theme: River Cottage recipes

Event Start Date: now
Event Deadline: 12 February 2012

I have been a fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and River Cottage since I was at university. To avoid university work, I used to watch repeats of the very early series wishing that one day, that kind of life would be my own. Now, as I have not won the lottery yet and it does not look like it is coming anytime soon, I have decided to set up a monthly blogging challenge that everyone can take part in and hopefully, bring us a little bit closer to living a lovely life in rural Dorset.

I have decided to call this challenge ‘River Cottage Rocks’. All you have to do is blog a River Cottage recipe on a chosen theme for that month.

Details can be found here







to be continued ........

Check back for lots more competitions, giveaways and challenges. I always have more to add as the month progresses.