From the 1960s-1980s recipe box of a midwestern grandma.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce

1 (16 ounce) can pinto beans, undrained

1 (6 ounce) package cornbread mix

1/4 cup chopped onion

2 tablespoons chili powder

1 cup shredded cheddar

Directions:

Cook ground beef, onion, and garlic in large skillet until browned and crumbly. Drain grease. Stir in tomato sauce and chili powder.

Spoon meat mixture into a lightly greased 12” x 8” x 2” dish. Top with cheese; spoon beans over cheese.

Prepare cornbread mix according to package directions and pour over beans.

Bake in pre-heated 400 degree oven for 25 minutes or until cornbread is golden.

Granddaughter’s Notes:

Again, not a chef, but.

Why are the beans on top of the cheese?

Why isn’t there more cheese in more layers?

Why isn’t there a basic enchilada sauce component?

But, mostly, and I don’t want to be too indelicate about it,

BUT WHY IS THIS TITLED “CRUSTY?”

Crusty beef casserole sounds like something that came out of your nose on a particularly low-humidity, high pollutant day.

Crusty beef casserole sounds like a scab, in unmedicated food form.

Crusty: a very bad word to apply to any food that is not French Bread, a baguette, or similar. And only these foods.

Every other definition and/or use of “crusty?” Not pleasant, not enticing. Not even for a (another god-damned) casserole.

Also? Going to take an absolute guess here but, if the adjective didn’t come from a magazine recipe— and it probably totally did, Grandma may have confused the just-right-crispy edges of a Jiffy cornbread (food endeavor; the cornbread or the various recipes so affiliated) with “crusty.”

And I gotta wonder…when she was scribbling this recipe on an index card, caring enough to file the thing in her recipe file box…

How is it possible she didn’t write “crusty” and say, “oh, god, no. It’s not crusty. It’s not even French. Or bread”?

How is it that she didn’t sharpie the hell out of “crusty” and crazy-cursive “crisped edges” or “crispy” or, as it should have been called, “Cornbread Beef Casserole”?

Also? A small damn thing but, aside from green beans, does the bean type matter? It feels like any non-green bean (type-thing) would work here: kidney beans, northern beans, black-eyed peas, chili beans, black beans.

And, under further consideration? Green beans could actually work here.

But maybe most importantly, to repeat myself: why isn’t there a layer of cheese under the beans and then another layer above the beans and then enchilada sauce (optional, if you’re feeling frisky), and then another layer of cheese?

I kinda like cheese and midwestern grandma seems, in this instance, to not be fulfilling her midwestern duties. Midwest is two things, at heart: cheese and corn (soybeans if you’re sassy, I guess).

Actually, Midwest is three things: Casseroles, Cheese, Church.

(And a Dairy Queen for every, like, three churches.)

But I, granddaughter, digress:

This recipe is badly named.

Don’t call food that is not both French and a bread “crusty.”

Like, just don’t.

There is not a hell of a lot of point on this recipe to specify the bean. Just, like, use a bean-shaped protein. Whatever is handy.

If there is only one layer of cheese (and if so, you’re doing it wrong), you place it above the damn beans and just under the cornbread topping (notably not “crusty cornbread” and one layer of cheese is inadequate).

There should, in fact, be a minimum of two cheese layers in this recipe.

And none of those layers should have such a meager amount as “one cup.”

And more onion. (Dude, enchilada sauce. And probably some black olives.)

And, Jiffy cornbread mix leaning sweet? Probably more chili powder, pepper, something.

(And we’re not a brand ambassador or anything influencer or anything like that but here’s just a moment to say: Jiffy cornbread mix legitimately rocks.)

Even in recipes with “crusty” in the title.