making Limoncello

i had my first taste of limoncello while in Crete.. and it was love at first sip!  Jim felt the same and was ready to buy a bunch of it.  however, the people we were with told us how very easy it is to make at home, so i set out to make a batch soon after we got home!

i looked on the internet and found many many recipes, each with a variation on the theme.  so here's what i did:  bought 4 organic lemons and scrubbed them well, used a vegetable peeler to take off just the very outside of the skin... none of the white part.  put the peels into a big glass jar and poured in about 1 1/2 cups of raki and 3 cups of 100 proof vodka, shook it up a bit, capped it tightly and set it in the dark in the pantry to age and flavor the alcohol.  after 3 weeks... today i boiled 2 cups H2O and 1 1/2 cups sugar, cooled that to room temp, then poured it into the lemon/alcohol, stirred, tasted and decided it needs a couple more weeks of aging.  wasn't quite lemony enough for my taste... otherwise, wow and yummy!!  the recipes i looked at all said to remove the lemon peels when you decide that it's ready, put into bottles and put in the freezer until you are ready for a treat.  if you want to make this concoction, i suggest that you google it, look at the various recipes and decide which looks the best for you.


the dogs looked so cute tonight lying in the kitchen waiting for a treat... so here they are!  Tasha was kind of grabbing a little nap while Meika kept a hopeful eye on what i was doing.  Meika will be 13 years old this month... that's about 2 years past the usual life expectancy of Siberian Huskies, and it's really obvious that she is almost out of time.  a couple of weeks ago she had stopped eating and spent a lot of time trying to get herself up from the floor after her hind legs slipped out from under her and she did a belly flop on the floor.  it's heartbreaking to watch that kind of thing.  so, i cooked up some hamburger for her and got some canned dog food from trader joe's (she was refusing the ordinary thriftway brand), she started eating, we made an appt. with the vet and came home with prednisone, which is a miracle drug in my opinion!!  after just 2 doses, she regained muscle control, continued eating if it was the special stuff, and was able to make it thru about half the normal distance of the morning walk with Jim and Tasha.  don't know how long the prednisone will continue helping, but Steve the vet said he'd make a home visit when it's time.  damn, that will be a hard decision, but i think she will let us know when that time comes.