Domestic Diva Strikes Again ~ how NOT to make your own yogurt

Another domestic whim came over me yesterday
(and we ALL know that a phrase like that can be a very dangerous one)

I have been racking my brain trying to figure out ways to cut our ever growing grocery budget
(one of these days I won't have a near heart attack at the check-out counter)
when I realized that a major monthly expense for us is yogurt.

I use yogurt every morning in my smoothie
I make our ranch with yogurt
Mixed with granola it is a great healthy snack
The kids love it with ANY meal
I cook with it

We easily spend $100/month in yogurt alone.

So being the money conscious guru that I am
I decided to take this into my own hands

Any clearheaded woman would simply say, let's cut down on the yogurt consumption.
(except for all the healthy gut benefits and scrumptuousness of it, and then there is the fact that it will most definitely need to be replaced by something else (the Colony has to eat SOMEthing!), and that something else is most likely more expensive and less health-friendly that yogurt...see what I have to work with people?!)

But oh no, not me.
I had to get all domestic up in here.

I did my research
(thank you google, Pinterest and Facebook)
and found a recipe that looked user friendly.

The process looked easy enough.

I had everything on hand
(if by everything you mean the wrong kind of mixing bowl, the wrong kind of towel thing and several different kinds of milk)

Step 1: heat milk in pyrex bowl
Well, I had 2 almost empty milk cartons and 1 new one. Company does that to you.  And my hatred for stuff made me NEED to consolidate. So I just finished off the 2% and then the 1% before adding the whole milk that the recipe asked for.  I also didn't have the right bowl, so I used a Tupperwear container and would transfer to an oven friendly dish later.

Step 2: let the milk cool
this step came to an end without a hitch because I actually had a food thermometer

step 3: whisk in the live cultures from yogurt
I do know how to whisk things so that helped

step 4: after preheating the over to 350 I'm supposed to cover the dish, and set it in the over for 1 minute before turning it off and letting it sit in there for LOTS of hours.
Which is fine, if you can find a bowl that can fit in the oven.  I, of course, could not, so I found a pyrex baking dish and laid a dishcloth over it, which immediately began to sag into my soon-to-be yogurt.  I told myself that it wasn't a big deal, shut the door to the oven and went about my day.

After small group last night I came home, so excited to bask in the domestic glory of homemade yogurt, at just a fraction of the cost.

Instead I opened my oven door to one of the biggest messes to date.

The kitchen towel had just spent the past 10 hours soaking up that milk concoction and drizzling it ALL.OVER.THE.OVEN.

Oh, and did I mention that I have NEVER cleaned my oven.
Nope, never.
I never really minded the smell of leftover sweet potatoes heated up from making Cai and Jude's baby food from over the years and all the other "stuff" in there.  It was clean on the outside, and it didn't mess up the essential oils being diffused throughout the house, so I was good in that department...

until now.

That smell.
That mess.

I froze.

And then I spotted it.

This oven had a button that said "CLEAN" on it.
It was a self cleaning oven.
I had a self cleaning oven!
(this could quite possibly be as dangerous as the living room slide, ie-ironing board, I pulled out a few weeks ago for the first time in a L-O-N-G time)

I did another quick little search to make sure I wouldn't burn down the house since I was tired from all my domesticating and I was going to bed.

I went in, hit the magic button and went to go brush my teeth.

It didn't take long for the oven to start doing it's thing...
if by "thing" you mean releasing these horrible (toxic I'm sure, because EVERYTHING is toxic that isn't "natural" and this certainly was NOT "natural") into the kitchen, which quickly began bleeding into the living room and continuing on into every crevice of the house!
I felt like I was in LOST, running from the smoke monster.

Ya'll it was HORRIBLE.

We opened up every window and door in the house while we finished gagging our way through our oral hygiene routine and getting ready for bed.

the doors we closed but the windows stayed open and the oil diffusers stayed on throughout the night.
(unfortunately I couldn't find my "screwed-up-the-yogurt-and-then-tried-to-clean-it-up-which-resulted-in-green-fumes-throughout-the-house" blend)

I had nightmarish flashbacks from the pumpkin seed incident in college all night long.

I would love to tell you that it's better this morning, but unfortunately it's not.
Nope.

So please give Josh a little grace if you smell see him this morning in the office, and by all means, come on over for some yogurt and granola later (I'll give you the real stuff, I promise).  I can't promise that you will leave without second-hand smoke inhalation, but at least we'll have a good laugh together.