My bread machine's 1st birthday

A year ago today my husband bought me a bread machine. It has surely to be one of the best investments we have ever made. The smell of fresh bread at 6:30 in the morning pulls me out of bed with no problems!

Some days later my sister came to stay with us for a few days and she gave me her bread-making recipe book. Wow, oh, just wow! We have such a choice of different types of bread now that, quite honestly, I just don't know which one to make first!

Take a look...

Mediterranean herb bread with rosemary, basil, oregano...

Basil and olive bread

Fruit loaf with dried apricots, apples, raisins, dates...

Indian spiced chickpea bread

Coconut and cranberry bread. Mmmm...

There is another bread that we make continuously. It's called semolina and olive oil bread and we like it so much that it's gone before I get an opportunity to take a photo of it! When it is still warm we eat it with melting margarine and sugar, or dip it in curried lentils and when it is cold we take it to the beach as sarnies, or eat it with olives for a snack. It stays moist for days due to the quantity of olive oil and has a delicious, grainy texture.

The advantage of a machine like this is that it spends little electricity and is therefore more economical to use than a traditional oven. Another good thing is that the heat that it gives off is minimum and I have placed mine under a window which makes the warmth even less noticeable. A third point I have to mention is that you can have a white loaf prepared within an hour, so if you get unexpected visitors and would like them to stay for supper, you are already half way to prepared if you can put a loaf of fresh bread on the table.

In the next post I'll let you all know which recipe book all these wonderful breads come from. I'm on holiday from blogging so it won't be for a few more days yet... (This is a scheduled  post which I have been preparing for quite some time.)