Rinse dry beans and put into 2 quarts of water to soak overnight. On the next day, add a bay leaf to the soaking water and bring beans to a slow boil over medium head. Reduce the heat of low and cover and simmer for one hour or until the beans are tender. Beans need to be kept submerged and you can add extra water if you need to do so. Be sure not to overcook the beans. You want them to keep their shape in your baked bean dish. Remove and discard the bay leaf when your beans have finished cooking.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Heat one tablespoon of the oil in a large pan and sauté the chopped onion until tender. This will take about 5 minutes. Add a generous amount of salt and the minced garlic to the pan and continue to cook until the garlic is fragrant--about 30 seconds. Add chopped sautéed onion, raw quartered onions and garlic to the beans. Add salt to taste, tomato paste, honey, molasses and chipotles. Stir well. Bake (covered) until the beans are soft but not falling apart and the cooking liquid has boiled down to form a thick, sweet sauce. This will take several hours. If your beans have too much liquid, you can take the cover off the pan and continue to bake in the oven until the liquid is reduced to the thickness you want.

While the beans are baking, drizzle the remaining tablespoon of olive oil over the diced sweet potatoes. Put into a shallow baking pan and roast at 375 degrees F. for about 25-30 minutes. When the sweet potatoes are baked through and soft, stir them into the baking beans about half an hour before the beans are finished baking. You want the sweet potatoes to absorb some of the delicious baked bean sauce. Alternatively, you could add the raw sweet potatoes to the baking beans earlier in the baking process. I found that my sweet potatoes were overdone and mushy when baked this way. For that reason, I opted to roast them separately and add them in at the end.

Serve baked beans garnished with chopped fresh parsley.