The problem with making beans from scratch is the time it takes to do it – since the beans take two or three hours to cook.

But, this weekend my refrigerator housed a large volume of chicken broth that was challenging its expiration date. I decided to make white beans, because earlier in the week we'd had rice and black beans – plain without seasoning or salsa (just rice and beans with pork chops and hot sauce), and I'd forgotten how good such simple food is.

Many beans are called white beans: baby lima beans, cannellini beans, flageolet beans, great northern beans and navy beans. I like navy beans the best because they're smaller in size compared with the others. Which doesn't mean you won't end up with a ton of beans when you follow the recipe below.

What are you going to do with so many beans? Or – more to the point of this blog article – what do I intend to do with my homemade beans over the next week or so? Here's what I'm thinking:

• beans as a side dish
• Italian sausage and pasta with beans
• broccoli pasta with beans
• pasta fagoli soup
• possibly, tomatillos and beans, with pork roast

Ingredients
2 cup (= 1 pound, the entire package) dried navy beans ($1.69 per package)
5 cup homemade chicken broth, or substitute chicken or vegetable broth made from bouillon cubes
5 cup water
fresh sprigs of rosemary to excess ($2.79 per package)
3 fresh bay leaves ($2.79 per package)
4 (or many more, depending on your mood) New Mexico chile de ristra ($2.89 per 5 ounce package of approximately 30 dried red chiles)

Procedure
Preheat the oven to around 350°F.

Put the beans into a Dutch oven. Add the chicken broth and water.

Tie up the rosemary, bay leaves and chiles in a cheesecloth bundle. Put the bundle into the Dutch oven.

Place the Dutch oven into the oven, and cook for two hours. Then taste the beans to see if they're done (they should be soft, not granular). If they're done, great; if not, cook the beans for another 30-60 minutes.

When the beans are done, drain off the cooking liquid (and don't even think about reserving it for another use; trust me on this). Discard the cheesecloth bundle. Refrigerate the beans.