Scripps Networks, which has been looking at bulking up its online effort with acquisitions, has made one: it has bought Recipezaar, a Seattle-area based online recipe site. It was started in 1999 under the name Cookpoint.com by former Microsoft employees Gay Gilmore and Troy Hakala, Recipezaar recorded 2.3 million unique visitors in June. The site has user-generated recipe and community site featuring more than 230K recipes, the company said. Pricing wasn’t disclosed, but John Cook’s Venture Blog on SeattlePI had a post yesterday about the price being close to $25 million.

Recipezaar will operate as a stand-alone brand within Scripps, separately from FoodNetwork.com. Deanna Brown, president of Scripps Networks Interactive Group, will be speaking at our LA Mid Year Review ContentNext Mixer next week, and I will get some more details on Scripps’ M&A strategy then.

This follows other M&A in the recipes sector: last year AllRecipes.com was bought by Readers Digest company for $66 million. Also last year, CNET bought French food site Art Culinaire. Time Inc launched an extensive food portal called MyRecipes.com earlier this year.

A good profile of Recipezaar in this Seattle BizJournals story from last year: “Couple write winning recipe for business”