Whole Grain Scrapple Recipe - Easy Camping Breakfast

The latest "Mother's Legacy II" cookbook our local MOPS group put together came out recently. I've been having so much fun trying out all my friends' recipes. Of course, I love the challenge of using their recipes for guides and them switching them with healthier ingredients. 

I'm forever getting stumped when it comes to making breakfast and I found most of us love "scrapple" (with the exception of Josiah, which is weird since he normally likes everything). Adults seem to love this, but kids, hit and miss. This is the easiest thing in the world to make ahead of time. It freezes well and you can double your recipe if you want two loaves instead of one. I've taken it camping twice and liked that all I had to do was fry it up because I made it ahead of time. I like easy when camping!

Whole Grain Scrapple Recipe:

1 lb bulk sausage, broken up

1 quart water

1 1/2 cornmeal, I use whole grain

1/4 c whole wheat pastry flour

Mix the cornmeal and whole wheat pastry flour together in a small bowl. Boil water and stir in loose sausage. When it begins to boil again, slowly add in all (stirring constantly) the cornmeal/flour mixture until it thickens. Cover and let simmer for 15 minutes over low heat. Grease loaf pans, or line them with unbleached parchment paper. Pour in scrapple mixture. Refrigerate after cooling. When scrapple is set, cut into 1/2 inch thick slices and fry in coconut oil until brown on both sides. Salt and pepper if you desire.

Optional:  you can also roll the slices in whole wheat pastry flour before frying to cut down on grease splatter. Although, I thought it seemed to turn out well whether I did this step or not. 

You can serve this with ketchup, syrup, honey, apple butter or barbecue sauce. I love it with the mock maple syrup I make out of sucanat and natural maple flavorings. 

Enjoy,

Jackie

Ranch Camping

We were so blessed to be able to go to the ranch out of Heppner again this year and ride 4 wheelers, play in the creek and most of all relax! Well relax as much as you can when you've got little ones running around everywhere :) It is a great time to catch up with family, too. Here is a picture of our tent on the deck near the rustic hunting cabin.

Nana, with the newest baby in our family, Elijah. What a great baby to take camping! I never took my kids camping when they were babies. Kudos to my brother and SIL!

Lily and Hailey, cousins and best friends. They are about a year and half apart and love each other to pieces. They have so much fun camping together.

The pasture where most of the cattle were grazing. It is breathtakingly beautiful!

The outhouse. Yep, it smelled bad!

View from one of the ridges we road the quads to. You could see for miles.

The old cookhouse where the loggers of old used to get their meals.

My niece, Jess, not only learned how to ride a quad, but also the Murray that Michael put together not long ago. She and Josiah had a great time.

The old one-room school house just down the rode from the ranch. 

Check out this view from the deck of the cabin.

The kids roasted many marshmallows and went through I don't know how many sets of clothing because of rain and getting soaked in the creek. We definitely didn't bring enough for them!

Common teasel. A weed that I think can be very pretty in the right setting.

My Uncle Kenny got out his metal detector and help the kids do a little detecting. Josiah has always wanted to do that!

I'm thinking of entering this pic into the county fair if I can find the time.

Loved this old plow among the teasel.

That bird has an interesting perch!

Another shack in the sunset, probably used when the area was being heavily logged many years ago. 

We love this place and can't wait to go back next year!

The Beauty of the Past - Images From a Ghost Town

My Aunt Deb is a watercolor artist and requested some pics of old wood and rust. I did my best to oblige. I love this pic of the old church near the Flora school. 

You can tell this this is the side that gets less wind and sun. There was still a lot of paint on it. Oh, how I wish someone would restore this old church!

Bell tower in the sunset.

Wild roses against the side of the church.

I took a bunch of close up pictures of various objects around North End Crossing Barn and Bed.

Vanessa had all these cute birdhouses on her fence. I love the old buildings in the background. 

I believe the building in the background used to be an old bank and the vault is still in it.

Vanessa's chicken coop built from the remnants of an old porch.

This house and covered well was photographed at sunset. It is called the Conley House. They are hoping to restore it and make it part of the "Barn and Bed". It was one of the first homes to be built in Flora.

Here it is again in the background.

Meat grinder.

The General Merchandise Store and Warehouse is the the background of this pic.

Old forge.

"Scraper" or I've also heard it called a "fresno".

Pieces of old harnesses.

Hailey's bonnet.

Looks like a pitchfork, but Dan thought it was probably a cabbage harvester, since it had a blade in the middle of it.

Hope you can see the beauty of all this rust and old wood like I do. I love history! We can learn so much from the past, especially when it comes to helping us appreciating what we have today. How I wish I could have met the people who lived in Flora a hundred years ago! 

God Bless,

Jackie

Flora School Education Center

When we were visiting North End Crossing Barn and Bed, the innkeepers took us on a tour of Flora's school, built in 1915. In an effort to save it, Dan and Vanessa have created a non-profit organization and listed it on *the National Register of Historic Places for its contribution to education and to the architecture of the time. It is now the called the "Flora School Education Center" and is being restored for the purposes of learning and promoting *the ways of the pioneers which encompass folk arts and historical agriculture. We were fascinated by all they had done to restore the building. They are truly amazing and talented people who love history and teaching. In Vanessa's own words, "There is one thing I cannot stress enough on the Flora School restoration project is that there are SEVERAL (hundreds over the years) volunteers that have helped through time, donations, materials and money since we started this project!"

*From the walking tour brochure.

The school was closed in the 1970s, and left to rot. But thanks to Dan and Vanessa's efforts, as well as many other supporters, it is being restored bit by bit. They are working on scrapping off all the paint on the woodwork and getting it back to its original stained wood. It is going to be beautiful when they are done!

The auditorium was really neat. They  said they've have homeschoolers put on plays here. I loved going backstage and reading all the graffiti written by students over the years.  

The stage trap door. They found some "interesting" things under there! I believe "Lucky Strikes" were mentioned ;)

The loom room. As I mentioned in my previous post, Vanessa is a master weaver. The school has many different types of looms and old treadle sewing machines, too, since Vanessa also teaches quilting. 

Dan said this loom came across the Oregon Trail. The date was "1826". Wow!

 It all looked so complicated, but once you mastered it, what a sense of accomplishment you would have.

The Flora School in all its "new" glory. Isn't it wonderful when you see a place that was falling down, be restored and useful again? It reminds me of what Christ can do for each of us, if only we are willing to be rebuilt in His likeness.

May God Bless Each of You,

Jackie