One of my former boyfriends got me a bread machine many years ago. It was an awesome gift! Just magic to throw ingredients in and come back to fresh bread in a few hours! I made bread almost daily for a while there. I should dig up my bread machine again. Back then, I didn't like to experiment much when cooking. I imagine I'd get a lot more use out of it nowadays.

Part of the reason I keep trying to figure out how to bake bread is that I've been spoiled by tasting the bread from an awesome baker. Unfortunately, we live almost an hour's drive away from his bakery now. And all the bread around here (and around most places really) now pale in comparison to his bread. So I found that buying bread was very unsatisfactory. So I resolved to try making my own bread. I'm far far far from making anything that tastes like his bread, but I'd say my bread beats most of what I can get at the grocery store now.