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)
My grandparents used a cast iron skillet but my mom was never interested in using one. Several years ago I asked for one for Christmas and my younger brother bought it for me. He didn’t realize how heavy it was and bought it first on his trip through the mall. He sure was happy to finish his shopping and get to the car after lugging that thing all around! Since my brother is no longer with us I especially treasure my skillet.
I LOVE Monte Cristo sandwhiches with strawberry preserves, too. Especially home made. 🙂 I have my husband’s Grandma’s cast iron skillet. I Love it. They just cook so much better to me and the flavor seems better, too. My mother always always always made her cornbread in her skillets….and everything else. 😉 Best cornbread ever.
My wife always adds comments to your forum, but I love your recipes too. In fact, I bought your cookbook for her birthday! Anyway, I have fond memories of my dad making milk gravy and cornmeal gravy in the same iron skillet we have in our cupboard today. My mom used to cook on an old wood cookstove, and had all the cast iron accessories including a large skillet that would hold 3 cut up chickens at one time! Now that we have an old wood cookstove I hope to use the skillet more!
I have 3 cast iron skillets I live them.. They were my Mom and Grandma’s. I use the smaller one for cornbread which I am making tonight. I have a deeper one I use for fried chicken. The other one for fried potatoes.
As any good Southerner knows you just can’t cook some stuff in anything other than cast iron. When I became engaged and registered for all the stuff to “set up house-keeping” I wanted to register for some cast iron skillets but my Mother talked me out of it. Then on the day of my shower my Mother presented me with her ENTIRE cast iron collection, seasoned and ready to use! Needless to say, I cried. One day I hope to pass it on to my daughter as her wedding gift.
When my precious grandma died, my uncles asked me if I wanted anything from her home. The first thing out of my mouth was her cast iron cookware. I have a large deep skillet and a crepe pan that she made Swedish pancakes. I can still picture her at the stove making mountains of crepe pancakes. They were to die for. I also remember her fried chicken that must have been the best in the world. I will never forget those precious memories.
Does anyone know how to get rust out of a cast iron breadstick pan.
Someone gave me one that was rusty and I would love to use it but I am not
sure how to clean it to get the rust out. Someone told me there is some way using salt. Thanks for the help if anyone knows how to clean rust out.
If it is just surface rust, scrub it with an SOS pad until all the rust is removed. Then you can re-season it as you would a new one. Remember, the oil from seasoning the cast iron is the life of your pan. NEVER soak cast iron in dish water, just wash well and always poor a little oil in it and wipe it down with a paper towel before storing. Just my 2 cents!
I google everything. However, I did watch someone clean up a cast iron skillet on the Today show (quite awhile ago) using oil and salt and paper towel. Pour a puddle of oil and salt and scrub. FYI..I season our cast iron w/bacon grease. I keep a jar in the fridge. Hope this helps.