I use my lunch prep to explore food from around the world. This week I tried Tavce gravce.

When researching the dish I found a lot of different recipes available directly from Macedonian sources and from surrounding Lower Blakans countries. I ended up taking the common elements from the several to come up with the recipe I used.

**Ingredients**

1000 g white beans

4 onions

4 cloves of garlic

4 Bell Peppers

8 smoked sausages

2 tomatoes

Paprika, to taste

Pepper, to taste

Salt, to taste

Vegeta, to taste

Bay leaves

**Directions**

Soak beans overnight in cold water.

Discard soaking water and boil the beans in fresh water for about an hour. Strain water, wash beans, and replace with fresh water to continue simmering. Add Vegeta and some bay leaves to the water.

Finely dice the onion, garlic, tomato, and bell pepper. Sauté the onion in oil until softened a bit browned. Add garlic and bell pepper and continue to sauté until softened.

Add in sliced smoke sausage.

Add the chopped tomato and let it all sauté together letting the tomato release its juices.

Drain the beans reserving the water and add the beans to the mixture. Season to taste with paprika and pepper. (You can add salt but Vegeta is salty)

Put everything in a greased baking dish and add three ladles of the reserved bean liquid.

Bake at 400° F for an hour. Remove and add the remaing whole sausages to the top pushing them down into the bean dish and bake for another half hour.

Serve.