Have you ever come across the recipe and just the name itself made you want to make it? That’s exactly what happened to me when I saw this old recipe card for Block Party Beans, because, well, Block Party Beans just sounds like a party in food form! And it kind of is — a recipe that includes ground beef and five different kinds of canned beans means there’s a whole lot of stuff to celebrate and this is the perfect dish to feed a crowd.

This card came to me through The Recipe Tin Project, which is a project where I cook my way through an old recipe tin full of vintage recipes. But you might have already guessed that. It’s chock full of old recipe cards, most of which seem to be from the ’60s and ’70s. I love food history, and the idea is to breathe new life into these recipes from the past and maybe learn a technique or two from them along the way. The recipes come from different people with different handwriting and some have sweet illustrations while others are on plain (often smudged and stained) index cards.

This one is of the plain index card variety with handwriting in blue ink that’s a little hard to read in places, but legible enough. It isn’t particularly smudged or worn though I’m sure it was well loved. The directions are cornered into a small section on the right with some of the ingredients above and below them, which took a little attention to sort out.

And that ingredients list is pretty interesting! You need two pounds of ground beef, some onion, celery, a can of cream of tomato soup, tomato paste, and ketchup for the base. That’s like a trio of tomato. But the beans are where things get interesting — this calls for five different cans of beans, specifically green beans, lima beans, wax beans, chilli beans, and pork and beans. (There’s some brown sugar and mustard in there too.)

Let’s just say that’s not the combination of beans I would expect in a baked bean situation, but with the Recipe Tin Project, we just roll with it!

You brown the meat and veggies first and let that simmer in the tomato trio for twenty minutes. Then, you add in all of those beans and the sugar and mustard and let things finish off in the oven for an hour.

I didn’t expect a lot from the green beans. Or the lima beans for that matter. But I was very pleasantly surprised! This tastes just like a great batch of baked beans with a smoky kind of sweetness and plenty of sweet tomato flavor. But that’s not all it is — it’s also meaty and hearty and contrary to my expectations, the green beans hold their form and lend some lightness to the group. It’s a good medley. It’s a party in bean form.