Monte Cristo Skillet – and Your Cast Iron Memories
This delicious recipe is at the bottom of the post. Hope you get to try it soon!
Be sure and share your special Cast Iron memories in the comments below!
(more details at bottom of post)
Today I’m thrilled to bring you a guest post from the good folks at Martha White, along with a fun announcement! The National Cornbread Festival is coming up! The cornbread festival is held each year in the neat little town of South Pittsburg, Tennessee, and this year Martha White has asked me to be a judge. So I get to participate in the festival AND taste all of the yummy entries, to boot! The festival is a weekend long family event with all sorts of fun activities taking place, including tours of the Lodge Cast Iron Factory. Click the Cornbread Festival logo at the bottom of this post to visit the official homepage and learn more.
I’m really looking forward to meeting more of the Southern Plate Family! We have a page over on Facebook where folks can RSVP that they are coming so if you plan on coming out for the fun this year so click here to head on over there and let me know so I can look forward to seeing your face and keep you posted on times and location of the Southern Plate Family meet and greet.
I’m also hoping some of you will enter the competition. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a member of the Southern Plate family won it? I happen to know that y’all are a group of extremely talented cooks – who cook for the love of family and friends – and I can’t imagine a dish tasting better than one made by one of you. For the official rules of the competition, click here. To go ahead and enter, click here.
This Monte Cristo Skillet was the Grand Prize Winner of the 2006 National Cornbread Festival. It caught my eye because I recently had my very first Monte Cristo Sandwich and absolutely loved it. Southern Living sent me to Charleston to do some presentations for the Taste of Charleston Festival. Have you ever been to Charleston? Oh my goodness gracious, is that a beautiful town! With every sight and sound I became more determined to bring my family back there someday so I could experience it with them (It is hard to enjoy a trip without the folks you want to share it with beside you).
As I’ve started traveling from time to time I’ve taken a queue from my adventurous counterparts at SL and started making it a point to try something new in each place if possible. In Charleston, I had my first Monte Cristo Sandwich and it was right up my alley. I ate it in the cafe of a beautiful hotel right downtown. The flavors were a unique combination for me: Ham, cheese, battered and toasted bread drizzled with a sweet fruit preserves and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. It was part lunch, part breakfast, part sandwich, part dessert, and all the way good!
So when Martha White offered to guest post I got to nosing around for what recipe I thought would appeal the most to everyone and as soon as this skillet came before my eyes, my heart just settled on it.
This recipe is quick to throw together and feeds six people. I like strawberry preserves with mine but feel free to use whichever you like best. I also omit the turkey and use additional ham in it’s place. Lunchmeat ham works just fine!
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Love Your Cast Iron?
Be sure and pick up this month’s special Cast Iron issue of Taste Of The South. It is filled to the BRIM with delicious recipes for your cast iron skillet, gorgeous food photography,
and those sweet people even put my name on the cover!
I don’t know who is more tickled, me or my mother!
![Happy Day After Christmas – Our Family Video for [year]](https://southernplate.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/christmas-dinner.jpg)
When my grandmother passed in 2007, I inherited her cast iron collection. My grandfather gave it to her for their 5th wedding anniversary. I use the big 12-inch skillet every day.
I have a whole set of Griswold skillets, plus a dutch oven with a handle that is at least 150 years old – would not trade these for the best available set on the market today. They have a finish superior to the best non-stick. Would sure like to know how many pounds of meat have passed through this big pot.
I have my mother’s two cast iron skillets. She was born in 1910 and these were her mother’s. I have no idea how old they are but I sure love to cook in them especially cornbread and fried chicken. I can still feel my mother’s love everytime I use them.
Love this and cannot wait to make it! I just love cooking in my CIS. Everything tastes so good! <3 and Hugs!
As a young bride I had my iron skillet just right for cooking–one day I came home from work my dear hubby said ‘ I have scrubbed that black skillet good and I hope you don’t ever let it get so black again”–and yet I am still married to him after 56 yrs. can anyone top this????
Oh, I would have been SO upset! I bet he learned though.
Yes! Men’s minds must run in the same channels. Mine (at the time we had been married way long enough for him to know better!!) put mine (which was given to me by my mother and probably had had more than 50 years’ use by that time) in the DISHWASHER!! That was about 15 years ago and he hasn’t touched any of my black ironware since! And we, also, just had our 56th anniversary!!
My father-in-law did the same thing to my mom-in-laws skillets. The ones her parents used. He got an SOS pad and scrubbed it! Every time she talks about it, she gets just as mad…lol…Maybe one day she’ll be able to re-season them.
My mother gave me my cast iron skillet for a wedding present. It is one of my most treasured items. Love frying chicken in it like I did last week.
So wonderful having ties to your Mama every time you cook! 🙂
Gratefully,
Christy
I will NEVER forget the day Mama caught Daddy frying eggs in her cornbread skillet! I thought she was going to strangle him. As she was yelling at him she was busy with a wire brush and hot water scrubbing out the skillet and reaching for the lard bucket to re-season it. I can only remember one or two times that she was madder at him! LOL Needless to say, Daddy learned his lesson about fooling with Mama’s cornbread skillet. He never touched it again that I can remember. And by the way, I now have that skillet. My husband, who is totally “kitchen challenged”, knows better than to touch ANY of my cast iron pots or pans! I have not been able to find this magazine anywhere in my area here in Central Pennsylvania. Anyone know how else I can get it? 🙁
I got mine at Walmart. If you can’t find it…email me and I will mail you a copy
DMRogers218@comcast.net
deb in Georgia
I have a cast iron skillet which was passed on to me by my mother-in-law and it had been passed to her from her MIL. It’s at least 150 yrs. old, best we can determine. It has “Martin Stove and Range Co., Florence, Ala.” stamped on the bottom. I don’t know if the Co. still exists, but I get a warm feeling every time I use it, just thinking “If that skillet could only talk!”
OH my goodness Phyllis, that is a treasured heirloom indeed!!! I got a warm feeling just reading about it!!!
Gratefully,
Christy
Wow! What a great story!