Celeste Gets Dominated By The Bread Maker

Five years ago when my husband Kris and I got married we received a rather large package at our new house from Target.  Oh what could be the excitement that lie in such a large box?  Low and behold said box contained my arch nemesis: the bread maker.  For those of you that know me, I have long indulged in the art and stress relief of making artisan bread, with particular regard to focaccia.  As only my husband has know until now, I have continually been dominated and humiliated by the simplest white and wheat loaf bread.  For some reason or another my ability to make such a creation has been far beyond my grasp.  At  this time I embarked on the journey of the bread maker.  Three hours later, I was disappointed to discover what I had created was a rock hard mass of flour that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.  Being an accomplished cook and baker, I could not figure out what the hell had gone wrong.  My loving husband examined the recipe and pointed to the loaf asking "what are those green flakes in there?"  In my infinite wisdom I am for the most part incapable of following a recipe and felt that said bread needed onion and maybe a little garlic.  Epic fail.  The details may be fuzzy but I'm pretty sure that just a week or two later my husband used the bread maker to make delicious moist white bread.  So the life of the bread maker ended and it went to reside in a dark corner of our basement storage room for over five years.  After returning from Christmas holiday, I decided that I wanted to make bread.  Kris suggested to me that I use the bread maker.  One must remember that time heals all wounds.  In the new found world of Pinterest, I decided that there was no way I would mess this up armed with every bread recipe known to man.  I followed the recipe to a tee, with the exception of a honey substitute that the recipe declared was acceptable.  When I hit the section that called for two tsp of salt I felt a stab of pain as I have never been one for excessive salt consumption but I added it anyway.  Watching the dough I knew that something wasn't right but decided to let it play out.  Three hours later, I was faced with another rock hard atrocity that was so salty I would liken it to play dough.  Now you might ask yourself "how does she know what play dough tastes like?" but that's a story for another day.  However, I am convinced the problem with this bread was that the yeast was no good.  So I did a little experiment with the yeast, sugar and water in a bowl.  I stick to my guns that this is exactly what was wrong.  Inedible mass to the compost pile.  Upon returning from work today, after forcing my self not to go to the store and buy yeast, I grabbed the bread maker and was going to banish it back to its dark corner Kris says to me"Leave that up here. I think tomorrow I might buy yeast and give it a try."  Today he made a delightful fluffy herb bread and I quote him saying "Put that on your blog and smoke it."  At this time I am taking suggestions for other uses for this obviously defective bread make.