The holidays, no matter which you celebrate, are a time in which traditions are on full display. Some traditions are shared by everyone, and some are specific to your region, your family, or, perhaps, just yourself.

I, personally, have a tradition of trying my hardest to find Young's Double Chocolate Stout and drinking it by a fire. If I can't find that, I buy the next best looking Stout or Porter I can find and drink two by the fire, one in consolation of my failed search and one in celebration of my own little tradition.

But Young's Double Chocolate is not what this post is about. This post is about family, heritage, and a non-traditional Christmas dinner that the Schulz / Lloyd clan has been making since well before I was born.

Lubia & Sharia

My grandmother, whom we call Maga, is 50% Italian and 50% Lebanese, which in turn makes her 100% incredible cook. Instead of the traditional turkey or prime rib that many Americans have for Christmas dinner, we've always had a dish that hails from the Lebanese side of that equation: Lubia & Sharia.

As a child, Lubia became my favorite meal. We only ever had it at Christmas, and it was something my grandmother would spend days making and perfecting. It was special for all of us, unique to my family, and delicious. All the ingredients needed for a wonderful non-traditional Christmas tradition.

Now, as an adult, my own Christmas traditions have evolved. Along with marriage came the need to navigate the question, "Which family do we spend Christmas with?" The answer that we settled on was to switch off every year, even years with Ali's family and odd years with mine.

Once put into practice though, I quickly found that the piece of Christmas tradition I missed the most (aside from my actual family, of course) was Lubia. So after that first year, I decided that I would need to bring this specific piece of my family with me. I spent the next Christmas at Maga's side learning the ins and outs of making Lubia, a necessity as this particular recipe is dominated not by measurements but by smell. You add spices until it smells like Lubia, no more, no less.

As we're in an even year, I'm with Ali's family in frosty Wyoming. Therefore, I thought I'd bring you all along with me while making this year's Lubia.

Lubia & Sharia

Est time: 8 hours

Step 1: Gather your ingredients

Ingredient List:

• A bone-in leg of lamb – 5-6 pounds cut by butcher into 1.5" steaks
• Spices – Cinnamon, clove, allspice
• A large yellow onion – Chopped
• Canned or fresh green beans – 3-4 cans, or enough fresh to feel uncomfortable
• Tomato sauce – 3 15oz cans
• Vermicelli or thin spaghetti – 1 package
• White rice – 3 cups
• Butter – 1 cube
• Heavy-bottomed pot – Dutch oven or similar
• Slow cooker

Step 2: Prepare the Lamb

This is, admittedly, the trickiest piece of the recipe as it relies on finding a good butcher. The ideal scenario is to buy a bone-in leg of lamb that's around ~6 pounds and ask said butcher to cut it into 1.5-inch steaks that look a little like this 👇

If you can't find someone to do this, getting lamb without the bone works as well.

From here, cube the meat whilst cutting off every single piece of fat that you can see. Removing the fat now ensures your end product doesn't end up a greasy mess.

Step 3: Brown the meat ♨️

Using a heavy-bottomed pot, heat some vegetable oil for browning your freshly shorn cubes of meat (and the bones!). This is the stage where smell and spice become critical elements in the preparation.

Now, I recognize that none of you have smelled Lubia before, and therefore have no basis from which to decide when things "smell like Lubia." That's okay, if you do decide to try your hand at making this, you'll start to concoct your very own smell to take with you moving forward.

Once the oil is hot, add the meat to the pot. Next, quickly dust each piece in cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Again, there are no measurements. I do an even dusting of each and then stir it all around to get the proper coverage. As the spices get hot, you'll notice a distinct, Christmas-y (at least for me 😊) fragrance start to pour out into your kitchen.

Once the meat is browned on each side, add it to the slow cooker. Repeat this process for all of the remaining lamb. At the end, your pot will look a little something like this 👇

Step 4: The zum

Now that you've burned all those spices to the bottom of the pot, it's time to put them to good use by creating what's called the "Zum." Add all of your chopped onion and a half cup of water into the pot. Next, using a wooden spoon, scrape up all those brown bits to coat the onions and saute until nice and glassy. Once done, add these to the slow cooker as well.

Step 5: Tomato sauce

Now that your slow cooker is full of meat and onions, we need some liquid to let things stew in. Add the 3 cans of tomato sauce and 2 cans of water into the slow cooker.

Step 6: Green beans

If using fresh green beans, cut them into one inch pieces. If using canned, open those babies up. Once ready, add these into the slow cooker as well.

Step 7: Cook, slowly

Set your slow cooker to low and let it all meld together for 6 - 8 hours.

Step 8: Sharia rice

First, put the vermicelli or thin spaghetti into a plastic bag and break it into small pieces. If you have some pent-up aggression, now is a good time to let it all loose 🔨.

Once you're about 30 minutes away from wanting to eat, melt a cube of butter in a large pot. When hot, add in your broken noodles to brown them. They should get to a nice golden color, not burnt. After browning, add 3 cups of white rice and 7 cups of water to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer on low heat for 20 minutes to allow the rice to cook.

Step 9: Eat.

If you've read this far, thank you for indulging yet another one of my recipe posts.