Join twowildtides on the country challenge. Each week, we’re going to be heading to a new country (in spirit). Primarily, we’ll be cooking a meal from each country; but we’ll also be watching travel documentaries, reading travel blogs, and listening to music. During the global pandemic, travel was largely inaccessible. We want to reignite our wanderlust, satisfy our travel bug as much as we can, and learn some new things along the way. I have a feeling our bucket list will have a number of items added to it through this experience as well. We created a simple alphabetical spreadsheet with all the countries of the world, and each week we will draw a random number that corresponds with a country on the spreadsheet.
This week, we’re in North Macedonia, a Balkan country that actually was called Macedonia up until 2019 when a dispute with Greece over the country’s name was resolved. Known for scenic mountains and valleys, cultural heritage destinations, and stunning lakes. Check out this blog post to learn about travel in and around North Macedonia:
The national dish of North Macedonia is Tavče Gravče, which is their version of baked beans. I am a big lover of English/Canadian/Newfie baked beans, which are heavy on pork, brown sugar, and molasses. Tavče Gravče looked like a lighter, fresher version, so we were excited to give it a try.
Tavče Gravče was featured on this post by Intrepid Travel, this post by Nomad Paradise, this post by Tour Radar, this post by Be In Macedonia, and this post by Eat Sleep Wander. We followed this recipe by one of our favourite food bloggers, 196Flavors:
This recipe involved white beans, which were soaked and boiled through various stages, and plenty of onions and bell peppers. In fact, in the final dish, we felt that the ratio of veggies to beans was pretty far off. If you’re going to make this, either half the number of veggies or double the amount of beans and adjust other ingredients accordingly.
While this recipe is not complex, it is time-consuming and involves attention throughout the day as well as preparation the day before. Overall, I would probably say that the amount of time is not really worth the final result…
…but it was super tasty! The flavours were awesome, the texture was great (aside from the poor veggie to bean ratio), and they were even better leftover. We served our Tavče Gravče beans at a family barbecue and everyone really enjoyed them.
Would I make this again? Probably not, but I am so glad we tried it. See ya next week!
Let us know what you think!