Hey, it’s block party season in Chicago! Woot!

This will make sense, hang on.

Truthfully, I was cloooose to sharing a chocolate goodie with you and no doubt I'll be sharing A LOT of chocolate goodies with you but I thought I’d give us a ridiculously short chocolate time out.

Trust me, it’ll be short.

Because chocolate! Who doesn’t love chocolate?! Oh. Mike. Right. But he’s weird. Except for Mike, who doesn’t love chocolate?!?!

But all righty, it’s block party season in Chicago. And if you’re lucky to live on a cool block, oh say, such as ours, we have an annual get together and it’s twelve hours of merriment. In fact, I hear two going on nearby as I type this.

Mike and I moved to our current spot back in 2013 and we won in the cool block department. Our neighbor across the street who uh, does make me a bit batty, knocked on our door, I’m trying to remember if it was that year….mmm probably not as that would not have been enough planning time…..so it was the spring after.

Pete the Sweeper, his nickname is in this household as he’s perpetually sweeping everything outside, the street, the sidewalk, the snow, the dirt (kid you not), Pete knocked on our door one day.

“Hey. You’re in charge of the block party committee now. Got it? Ok. Bye.”

That’s really kinda how it went.

Uh.

Now, it’s weird. I’m not sure why he chose me. We were fresh-faced newcomers. I’ve never freakin’ planned a block party before!

Two of us winged it that first year with Pete and it turned out to be a spirited success. A fire truck dropped by and that was ridiculously fun. Yes I crawled all around inside it. We grilled for the block, chilled with the neighbors, and had a rousing load of fun.

The next year we scored a bouncy castle (the city provides these free of charge for block parties which is a nice perk) but I pissed off Pete and he’s secretly hated me since. (What? I didn’t want to spend $200 for his buddy to grill pork chops and Italian sausages, sorry. Not stuff kids are into, ya know?)

That was the year we met our neighbors down the street, Renee and Anne. Who are Awesome. Capital A and everything.

See, the goofy thing about Chicago and blocks and neighbors is that, well, several things. Chicago is an amazing city. It’s made up of about seventy seven neighborhoods which blanket cover for really about two hundred different neighborhoods, each with their own sorta thing goin’ on.

Like the weather here (wait five minutes and it will change, we get all four seasons in a day sometimes), blocks vary greatly. You seriously can go one block and it’s great then cross the street and it’s not. It’s confounding to folks who aren’t from here.

We’re friendly folk, us Chicagoans. We’re friendly with our neighbors (except for uh, ahem, dibs) and we like to get to know them a bit but we are also a polite people (see exception). Midwesterners ya know, hence we keep quietly to ourselves. So for us to kinda know our closest proximity neighbors is about how far most anyone goes. Typically. More often than not.

To meet Anne and Renee, sheesh, down the block, soooo far away (what, like eight houses or something dumb, I know)….it took a while. All that lost time, I’m tearing up.

Renee joined the block party committee year two and the fun kicked up a notch. By default, Anne and
Mike were roped in so then it got silly. Silly. This year, year four, our next door neighbor Manny joined and things are just out of hand now. Pete, yeah, we don’t invite him anymore.

Hey, before you think I’m a terrible person, he cares about it, harasses me every March alllll the way up to the date, but he doesn’t want to be involved. In fact, and strangely, despite his bluster over the party, he rarely comes outside. He’s out front 364 days; come the block party, he’s a shut-in.

What can I say. Weird.

Unfortunately we can’t host the block party planning meetings at our house as we have the people-and-everything hater Finn. Kindly Renee and Anne have been hosting our meetings which ya know, to be frank, are mostly an excuse to hang out into the evening.

Talk about the block party for five minutes, have some wine, laugh a lot, eat some snacks, tell some stories, have more laughs.

They’ve been feeding and wining us every time, and at block parties too, every chance they get in fact, so this year I finally got my uh you know what together and have been bringing tasty snacky things in an attempt to catch up and balance the giving scales.

bleu cheese popover muffin ingredients set out

Just a few simple ingredients lead to very happy friends.

Obviously then, looooooonngg story short, these Bleu Cheese Popover Muffins made an appearance at our most recent “meeting.”

Plus too, if you ended up springing for a mini muffin pan* at some point and you’re not sure why, like me, and you’re trying to find uses for it, like me, because you think single use tools are a waste, like me, here’s your chance.

And don’t worry, I’m digging up multiple recipes for that pan now so if you do spring for one in case you hadn’t, I promise I will help you not feel bad about it.

All blended up and ready to roar.

If you don’t have one, do not fret my friends, this recipe can be made in a regular muffin pan; you’ll have larger popover muffins is all. So sad. Not.

These were bona fide de.li.cious. I could not stop stuffing these little buggers in my face. It was near embarrassing. They’re a combo of two recipes: one from Tasty Kitchen and one from Williams Sonoma which the latter is odd for me as personally, I rarely have luck with their recipes.

dropping bits of bleu cheese into batter in muffin tin

Fill the tin, add the cheese, pace briefly, enjoy the amazing scent and….

And brave of me to combine two savory recipes together. Typically that’s a recipe for a huge disaster. For real. Ask Mike. (Poor guy.)

As an added bonus, these are laughably easy to make. Granted, they are the kind of mix/bake/serve at the last minute dealios so for entertaining say, ….maybe it’s a good excuse to slip into the kitchen.

They’re best fresh outta the oven, warm and slightly crispy, a wee eggy like a good popover should, but even hours later a tad chewier, I couldn’t help myself. You can reheat these mini loves, best by oven or toaster oven rather than nuking though, so you can make/bake/cool, party, reheat.

baked popover muffins in mini muffin tin

Um, yes please. All in my mouth now please.

At any rate, all ya do is mix ‘em up, spoon the batter into the pan, drop some bleu cheese (or maybe any cheese with a bursting flavor for that matter) (toss in some herbs if you want even) (maybe kick ‘em up with a dash of spice too, whoa), bake, and enjoy.