Basic Homemade Bread Recipe

I've never been very domestic, but with the birth of my son, I've gotten interested in all sorts of things I never had time to bother with before.  A friend gave me a bread machine and I promised my husband that I would learn to use it.  Ginger gave me her recipe, but she only uses the bread machine to make the dough.  She then forms the dough into a desired shape and bakes it off in the oven.  Here is her recipe:

2 cups flour
3/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1 egg (optional)
1 1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon salt

I have made this in my breadmaker on the french bread setting and it worked great.  Made a fluffy bread.
Sometimes, I substitue 1 of the cups of white flour for spelt flour or 100% whole wheat with very good results.

When I want to make a bread that is more dense, if I'm going to slice it to make sandwiches, I only use 1 teaspoon of yeast.