Since it is now blueberry season, I try and do everything blueberry at the B&B. I made blueberry pancakes this week, blueberry french toast and dessert last night was homemade blueberry pie. One of our guests said it was the BEST blueberry pie he had every had, so I am now sharing my recipe with anybody who wants it. Use whatever crust is your favorite homemade, Pillsbury, etc. This recipe is for a 9-inch two-crust Pie:
BLUEBERRY PIE
1/2 cup Sugar, 1/3 cup Gold Medal Flour, 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon, 4 cups Blueberries, 1 TBL Lemon Juice, 2 TBL Butter. Heat oven to 425 degrees, lay crust on bottom of pie pan. Stir together sugar, flour, and cinnamon; mix with berries. Put into pastry-lined pie pan; sprinkle with lemon juice and add butter on top of berries, then add Top crust which has slits cut in it; seal and flute. Cover edge with two to three inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking. Bake 9-inch pie 35 to 45 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust. I always cook on a round pie pan in case bubbles over. Everybodies ovens are different so it could take shorter time or longer time just keep checking it. ENJOY!
In Nappanee, Indiana, Thurs, August 4 thru Sunday, August 9th, Amish Acres 49th Annual Arts and Crafts Festival is HAPPENING. Only 6 miles from the Scottish Bed and Breakfast we still have guestrooms available for Sunday night. Over 320 artists and crafters from around the country surround Amish Acres pond to ply their trade and sell their wares. Live entertainment on three stages throughout the day includes country bands, magicians and square dancing. Festival foods are very important part of the four day event featuring everything from apple pie to zucchini bread. Best In Show cash prizes, children’s entertainment tent and much more have earned the festival the honor of being one of the Top 200 festivals in the nation and the 8th Top Traditional Crafts Show by Sunshine Artist Magazine. The Arts and Crafts Festival has also been rated as one of Leisure Group Travel magazine’s Top 50 Outstanding Festivals and Events. So it is not too late to venture out and spend the day at the Festival on Sunday then check in to the Scottish Bed and Breakfast that evening, stay a couple of nights and explore Shipshewana Flea Market which is open every Tuesday and Wednesday!
Since we are pet friendly here at the Scottish Bed and Breakfast we have our wonderful guests sometimes bring their four-legged best friends with them. Harry’s owners are Cheryl and Lennie from California who were in the area getting their RV repaired. They stayed with us for four nights, so we had a chance to observe Harry. What a wonderful obedient dog who thought he was a human. Even the Scottish Terriers at the B&B liked him. His owners are wonderful people too and now friends of ours.
A friend of mine and myself went on a field trip to “Lavender Harvest U-Pick Days” at Lavender Hill Farm in Niles, Michigan only 30 minutes from the Scottish Bed and Breakfast. It was a sunny hot days and we enjoyed a sample of lavendar lemonade and lavendar honey in the Lavendar Gift Shop which was filled with everything lavender. I found a pastoral setting with over 4000 lavendar plants that display their glory for a few weeks each summer from late June to mid July. Their speciality are the lavender essential oil and fragrant lavender water that they distill from their own lavender flowers, and the varietal lavender honey made by honeybees on their farm and a line of fine bath and body products made with lavender and other essential oils. The shop is open April through mid-December. A surprise were the black sheep, beehives, chickens, cats and wildlife that lives at and around the family farm. This hidden treasure is a must see!!! I will visit the Lavender Hill Farm next year.
eat. drink in downtown South Bend, Indiana during restaurant week June 27 – July 9, 2011. Sixteen restaurants participating in multiple course meal or dinner for two $25. Dine downtown during Eat.Drink. Downtown South Bend and you can “Add an Extra helping” for only $5. This extra helping goes directly to the Food Bank of Northern Indiana to help fight hunger in nine counties across Northern Indiana. The Food Bank serves more than 10,000 people each month, nearly half of whom are children. Add an Extra helping is a great way to give back to the South Bend community. LaSalle Grill, fine dining , Fiddler’s Hearth, LePeep, Tippecanoe Place Restaurant, The Vine, Sunny Italy Cafe just to name a few of the fabulous restaurants offering this discounted DEAL. The Scottish Bed and Breakfast is only 20 minutes from all 16 restaurants. If you are a foodie and appreciate good food this is the place for you. Check out details at: www.eatdrinkdtsb.com Come STAY.PLAY.EAT.DRINK in Bremen and South Bend, Indiana.
On Sunday, May 1, the town people of Bremen, Indiana, came together to celebrate the preservation work completed on the historic Bremen Train Depot with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 2 PM and with the Bremen High School band performing. B&O (Baltimore and Ohio) built a railroad track across northern Marshall County in 1874. The first depot was wooden and on the northwest side of the east-west railroad track on Center Street four blocks north of the center of Bremen. This brick Train Depot building was built by B&O in 1929 directly across the track from the old depot on Center Street.Local contractor S.G. Lehr was the builder. The depot was dedicated on October 22, 1929, seven days before the stock market crashed. The depot served as a passenger station, a freight office, a Western Union office and a mail station. It provided passenger service until 1971. In May 1987 the depot was officially closed and boarded and left to deteriorate.
In 2002, a small group of citizens met and decided to save and restore the depot. Historic Bremen, Inc. was formed, a federal funded Transportation Enhancement grant was obtained, CSX donated the building if moved and the Town of Bremen donated the new site. Work started in the fall of 2008 and the move was completed in 2009. In early 2010 another grant was obtained from INDOT using ARRA funds to complete the restoration project. The move and restoration of the depot was completed November 1, 2010.
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Every year the Amish community in Bremen, Indiana holds a “Garden Walk” with eight Amish families participating this year. The third annual “Amish Garden Walk” in Rentown area is Saturday, June 18 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. They ask for a donation ($7.00) which the money helps the local Amish school. I have attended every year since it started and I always suggest it to my guests. One year I found an Amish guy who beautifully carves clocks in his shop and sells them. Never knew his shop was there, I was never in their back yard before. So my guests now visit this unique shop and can purchase a grandfathers clock or a small alarm clock in different types of wood. The “Amish Garden Walk” starts at the Amish School house and they sell bake goods and have a dessert snack and beverage for all of us to enjoy. As we walk to the different Amish gardens, the Amish grocery store gives out “FREE” homemade ice cream. I enjoy the beautiful landscape, their farm animals, vegetable gardens and flower gardens….with NO weeds. A very enjoyable day! Bring your camera! We are all helping their Amish children learn by donating to their school.
SPRING IS IN THE AIR! Every year when Amish Acres opens for the season we are excited to see what the plays will be. The “Old Rugged Cross” will run April 14 – May 29. Amish Acres will be open Thursday through Sunday April 14-17 and Wednesday through Sunday beginning April 20. The restaurant, cheese factory, gift shop area and tours of the farm house are just a few of the FUN things to do at Amish Acres in Nappanee, Indiana. Their website is: www.amishacres.com. Come stay at the Scottish Bed and Breakfast which is only 8 miles from Amish Acres. One of the flowering “Quilt Gardens” is located at Amish Acres.
We are very excited about the outside garden patio (from the poolroom door) being extended 18 feet with decorative colored concrete. It will give our guests more room to sit outside eat breakfast or just relax and enjoy the weather and the countryside and all the birds singing. It is such a quiet, peaceful area. More flower beds will be added, lighting under the tables with chairs. Also, with the new space we will be able to offer outside weddings. The weddings will be held outside and the reception will be poolside. After being in the B&B business for 7 years, we want to expand our business to offer small intimate or second time around weddings. Homer has several projects to do before the electrician and the concrete company comes in. The first project was to cut down the tree in back. He can check that off his list, then move all the rocks, that is the hardest project and he is still in the process of doing that. Stay tune for pictures and progress. He is just waiting for the weather to break…….
“Edward Christian Dining” is a fine-dining restaurant downtown Bremen, Indiana with two excellent chefs on staff. The name of the restaurant is named after the owner’s father who has passed away. Randy Z. (one of the chefs) has his own TV show called “Comfortable Cooking with Randy Z” which airs Wednesday at noon and Saturday at 5:00 PM channel 46 (WHME a local channel). The restaurant is only 1 mile from the Scottish Bed and Breakfast, so we recommend this restaurant to all our guests. This past weekend our guests from Chicago went there for dinner and his name is Christopher Edwards. Him and his wife joked with the waitress about the name of the restaurant and his name. The reason I recommend this restaurant to our guests is because the food is good and has a variety of choices on the menu, close to the B&B, and it has a quiet comfortable atmosphere. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful restaurant in our community. check out their menu at: www.edwardchristiandining.com
The Scottish Bed and Breakfast, offers a “special money savings deal” to you and your best girlfriends wanting to get away from the kids, husbands, house chores and your job…. to scrapbook, quilt, talk, watch movies and eat popcorn, go shopping, get a massage (extra cost) or just sit by the indoor pool and read a good book. If you all stay two nights or more, we will have “A Pizza Party On Us”. Each morning you will be served a delicious breakfast prepared by Brenda, the Innkeeper. CALL US FOR DETAILS!
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Friday, April 15 and Saturday, April 16, is the first festival of the year in Northern Indiana, located in historic downtown Wakarusa. COME enjoy free popcorn, parade, FREE entertainment, sugar camp and museum tours, contests with cash prizes! Craft and food vendors, car show, face painting and carnival rides! Buy fresh maple syrup. No admission charge, FUN for the whole family!
The Scottish Bed and Breakfast is only 20 minutes from the festival. We WELCOME vendors and festival goers to lodge with us. Checkout their website: www.wakarusamaplesyrupfestival.com and ours www.scottishbb.com
It’s that time of the year when the local Amish farmers collect maple syrup from buckets attached to maple trees and then processed in a special tank. Only a two to three week period determined by the weather. Warming up above freezing during the day and below freezing at night makes the sap run from the trees then collected when buckets are full and boiled in the tank. Forty (40) gallons of sugar water makes one (1) gallon of maple syrup.
A local Amish farmer that we know, would be happy to show our guests the process of boiling sugar water into maple syrup “free” just ask Brenda from the Scottish Bed and Breakfast to set it up for you when making your reservation. Then you can purchase the maple syrup from the farmer in quart or gallon sizes on the spot. There are different grades of syrup determined by the color, lighter to darker. Very interesting and educational!
The Scottish Bed and Breakfast is just 8 miles from the two “Quilt Gardens” in Nappanee, Indiana one located at Amish Acres and the other located behind the Nappanee Chamber Office on US 6. Make your reservation now for your stay and plan your trip to visit the beautiful Quilt Gardens in “Amish County”. 18 super-sized quilt inspired gardens from May 30 to October 1. Why not take along a picnic lunch to enjoy as you stroll the gardens. You won’t want to miss even one!
The quilt gardens tour is a “free” self-guided tour, at your leisure, takes visitors to 16 locations throughout Elkhart County. Gardens range in size from about 80′ by 80′ and can include more than 80,000 blooms. Along the way you will find 16 large-format murals painted in patchwork quilt designs on sides of buildings. The Innkeeper at the Scottish B&B will supply you with a map.
When you return back to Inn, you may relax by the indoor pool, or outside garden patio and reflect on your FUN day. This Northern Indiana getaway will charm you with the beautiful gardens and the simple life of the Amish that you will see along the way.
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Since it is now blueberry season, I try and do everything blueberry at the B&B. I made blueberry pancakes this week, blueberry french toast and dessert last night was homemade blueberry pie. One of our guests said it was the BEST blueberry pie he had every had, so I am now sharing my recipe with anybody who wants it. Use whatever crust is your favorite homemade, Pillsbury, etc. This recipe is for a 9-inch two-crust Pie:
Since we are pet friendly here at the Scottish Bed and Breakfast we have our wonderful guests sometimes bring their four-legged best friends with them. Harry’s owners are Cheryl and Lennie from California who were in the area getting their RV repaired. They stayed with us for four nights, so we had a chance to observe Harry. What a wonderful obedient dog who thought he was a human. Even the Scottish Terriers at the B&B liked him. His owners are wonderful people too and now friends of ours.
