Simple White Bean dish

Last night I made a simple white bean dish that I got from one of my favorite new cookbooks, Super Natural Cooking. The recipe below is from this book with a couple of my own adjustments.

Making beans:
I have never actually bought dried beans before and made them myself, but this was so easy and cheap and delicious that I will probably start doing this all the time. Soak the beans overnight, or at least for five hours. After soaking, rinse them and put in a large pot. Add enough water to cover the beans by at least two or three times the volume of the beans. Add a chopped onion, carrot, and/or celery. You can also cook the beans without these extra veggies but I think they
make the beans even more yummy! Let the beans simmer until the tender. For the little white beans I used for this recipe it took about 50 minutes. Depending on the size and type of bean it could take much longer to cook. Once the beans only have about 15 minutes left, add a generous amount of sea salt to the simmering pot. You don’t want to add the salt too early or it will make the beans disintegrate a bit. Once they are done drain the beans and veggies together.

Little white bean dish:
Get a large frying pan and melt a hearty chunk of butter (about two tablespoons) in the pan. Add the beans in a single layer and let them fry. Cook for about 3 to 4 minutes on medium high heat on each side. You want the beans to get nice and crispy. At first I thought, why does it have to be a single layer? Well, the beans get crustier with a single layer and that means it is more delicious! Salt to taste. After the beans are nice and crusty add one chopped onion and 4 or 5 chopped cloves of garlic. Sautee until the onions get soft. Add 6 big leaves of chard. The chard stem should be chopped and the leaf cut into thin strips. Sautee until the chard has wilted,
not too long. That is it! When I was sautéing the onions with the beans I thought things were getting a little dry so I added some olive oil. Feel free to add it at any point during the process. Enjoy!