So I'm finally back home and somewhat on a regular schedule and digging back into this. I like the idea of using the shiftin/shiftout command as I could use existing pins and maybe be able to use an existing board. However, for the proof of concept I'm first trying to do it with the least number of variables. I've been looking at the SPIMAST.pbp sample as Henrik suggested and have identified the SCK pin (portC.3), the SDI pin (portC.4), the SDO pin (portC.5) and I've assigned my 'active low chip select' output to B.0.

I have changed my TRISB & C settings accordingly.

Now I'm starting to look at the sample code and figure out how to incorporate this into my code and how much of it I will need if I use the Shiftin/Shiftout. I don't understand these settings:

SSPEN VAR SSPCON.5 ' SSP Enable bit
CKP VAR SSPCON.4 ' Clock Polarity Select
SMP VAR SSPSTAT.7 ' Data input sample phase
CKE VAR SSPSTAT.6 ' Clock Edge Select bit
SSPIF VAR PIR1.3 ' SPI interrupt flag

I can't find any information on what these settings mean and how to make sure I have them right for my set up. I've been looking in the compiler manual and can't find anything.
Once I have everything setup. What I want to do is fairly simple. When a switch on a different port changes, I will write 16 bytes of data (actually 2 bytes over and over, 8 times) to the slave and then read back 16 bytes. I don’t need an interrupt or anything fancy.
Is there some more documentation on the SPI or other help is appreciated.
Thank you,
Hylan