Spread the Bread

We're moving up the nerd cooking ladder into bread and I have no idea what I'm doing.  I've probably made bread twice before in my life, plus pizza dough maybe 5 or 10 times.  None of it was particularly good.  I spend a day trying to make brioche about 10 years ago, and it was a day wasted.  But with the blog waiting and camera phone in hand, Once more unto the breach, dear friends!

I wanted to start with something simple, and I don't have a bread pan, so I perused the web for a dutch oven bread recipe.  I remember hearing that you can do a nice crusty bread in a dutch oven, so I found this recipe:
http://themerlinmenu.blogspot.com/2010/10/dutch-oven-bread.html
1 package active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups bread flour or all-purpose flour and a bit more for dusting the bread after rising.

I was almost out of flour so I had to decrease the whole thing by 1/3 since I had just 2 cups.  First off, I was surprised that every dutch oven recipe, and most of the "simple bread" recipes use no eggs or milk.  I really know nothing about bread making, but I thought bread and milk were pretty standard ingredients.  I'm gonna have to sit down and read a book I guess, but in the meantime any guidance is welcome in the comments.

Pre-rise dough

Anyway, I did add a bit of brown sugar to the warm water and yeast to promote growth and threw in some corn meal since I was out of flour and the dough was unworkably wet after the first rise.  I have to say, I was surprised how easy the process is.  The rising takes time, but actual active cooking is probably less than 20 minutes, and that's with me having no idea what I'm doing.  I pre-heated to 500 and put the bread in covered reducing immediately to 450.  After 20 minutes, I took off the cover to allow browning.

You can see that the bread came out very nice visually.  It had a think, hearty crust and browned well.

The problems came with tasting.  The bread was just very, very bland.  Even the smell of the cooking bread was bland, so I guess the flavor should have been no surprise.  When people call something boring and bland "White Bread", this is the actual loaf they're referencing.  With some butter and salt, it was still pretty delicious.  We ate about half the loaf (but we were also drunk and I was swigging vodka out of a plastic 1.75 liter bottle).  So, foodies and nerds, what's the solution?  I think it was under salted for one.  But can I just add some butter too?  eggs yolks? maybe some milk instead of water?  I have no clue how any of that will affect the bread and unlike normal cooking I don't think I can just throw shit it hear and there to taste.  This is baking, yo!  Please help.