We don’t sell our hot sauce at this point–making it is a labor of love. We do blend and bottle it for family, foodie friends and a few of our business clients a few times a year. If you’re one of them, and have run out of your supply, there’s hope: we plan to bottle a batch of our election-year “Heated Debate” blend in 2012.

In the meantime, here’s our gift to you: the recipe for “Season’s Heatings” fajita seasoning mix (another thing we occasionally blend and give away). It’s so easy, any child who can hold a measuring spoon steady can help you make it. Enjoy it as a salt-free seasoning in your favorite chicken, beef, shrimp or vegetable fajitas recipe. Or, if you discover you’ve forgotten to buy a gift for someone who cooks, mix up a batch, put it in a pretty jar or shaker, stick a label and bow on it and you’re done.

Bob & Sue’s Easy “Season’s Heatings” Fajita Spice Mix

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon garlic powder

Stir all ingredients in a mixing bowl until thoroughly blended. Store in a completely dry, airtight container.

Use:

This is a good salt-free substitute for commercially-packaged seasoning. Use in your favorite fajita recipe. One and 1/2 teaspoons of the dry mix will season 4 servings in a typical recipe. Your tastes may require more or less flavor intensity.

Notes:

This makes about 1/3 cup of seasoning, which will fit in a 4-ounce container.

Since the spices are in equal portions, this is an easy mix to make in larger portions. For a bigger batch, for example, use 1/2 cup of each ingredient.

Enjoy responsibly. (And if you have small children helping you, don’t let them inhale. The ingredients are very sneeze-worthy!)

Have yourself a spicy little Christmas now!

As we prep peppers and turn them into bottled flavor and heat, we muse about some of the life lessons that can be found in the process.

1. Plan ahead, but be adaptable to change. We grow a few of our own ingredients, which takes advance planning. We also buy from a local farmers’ market and grocery stores. We can’t always count on a good yield or the same types of peppers being in season. So, we adapt the recipe to accommodate what’s available. In a recent batch, for example, we used some of our perfectly ripe home-grown Anna and Dorsett Golden apples instead of a mild pepper. Sweet…then the heat kicks in.

Interesting things can happen when you are open to a change of plans.

2. Sharpen your tools. Sharp knives are important for slicing and dicing the peppers, onions and garlic that go into our sauce. So is a good blender with powerful blades. When we received a heavy-duty blender as a Christmas gift a few years ago, it made a huge difference. The results were a smoother blend in a lot less time.

When you try out a new skill or sharpen an old one, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

3. The process can be as rewarding as the goal. There is a sense of accomplishment when we see those little bottles lined up in neat rows on the kitchen counter. But we treasure those hours working side by side, too. We get into a state of flow with Texas blues playing in the background while we do the ordinary chores of prepping, measuring, mixing, simmering and pouring. There’s great anticipation and excitement after the first blending step, when we sample a few dots of the thick sauce on a cracker.

Life isn’t just about the major accomplishments. It’s also about the small steps you celebrate along the way.

4. Don’t settle for off-the-shelf. I had never been especially fond of mass-produced, store-bought hot sauces. Too much heat and not enough flavor. In 2005, I found a couple of recipes online and we began experimenting. That developed into a blend of hot and mild peppers and other ingredients that add flavor to the heat.

We miss out on life’s richness when we settle for someone else’s idea of what we should have, without exploring other options.

5. Time is the secret ingredient. We invest a whole afternoon every time we make hot sauce. We don’t get any financial benefits from it (yet). To us, the gift of time spent together is more valuable than anything we might buy and wrap in shiny paper. The people who get a bottle of hot sauce from us may not know how much time went into it, but it does surprise them that we would find time to make it.

Share time with someone special. Don’t count the minutes or the cost.