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!
I’m gonna have to make this for my husband. I was showing this recipe to him and he said it sounded like the sandwiches we had at Pattis Restaurant in Grand Rivers, KY. That’s been about 15 years ago! I was surprised that he remembered it.
My grandma got married in 1905. They had little but she had her cast iron. She was 80 when I was born. I remmeber standing by the wood cook stove in her kitchen and watching her stoke the fire to make corn bread in her iron skillet. Mom always made our thanksgiving dressing in a monster size iron skillet. We never had cake pans – we used different size skillets to make beautiful layers. When I touch grandama’s or mom’s pieces they are with me. When I was a new bride we went to visit a preacher living in the mountains. His wife had a massive collection of iron skillets hanging in her kitchen. They had six grown boys and countless grandchildren. She cooked every meal in her skillets. Just cooked our families meal tonight in a new lodge skillet. Why would anyone choose another cookware? My son’s and grandchildren will enjoy these pieces – no doubt.
I love reading these posts! Cast iron and Revere ware..I don’t think anything can kill them. I think I’ve done everything to those pans learning to cook and they still work!
I really should have a cast iron skillet! Someday I will… 🙂
I love seeing these postings about cast iron!. I have a cast iron skillet that’s well over a hundred years old, and three others that are at least 60 years old. My mother gave me the first one and when she died, I inherited the others. To me they are precious beyond any monetary value. I just used two of them yesterday, a great pot roast with fantastic gravy…. and an upside down cake… But nothing fries potatoes like cast iron….. and on and on. I have so many beautiful, shiny pots and pans that just take up space…. I always use my heavy old antiques…. A few years ago, for Christmas my daughter bought me a cast iron dutch oven…. it sits permanently on my stove top. I use it so often…. and by the way, I store my iron skillets in my oven. I even leave them in when I’m baking if I don’t need the shelf space. Once they’ve been well seasoned, they never need soap… just use a soft brush and hot water and they are once again ready to use. Can’t beat the good old things……..
BTW…. I’m also a southern girl… my entire family was born and raised in east Tennessee. So, obviously pinto beans, fried chicken….. and all those delicious foods that we never forget, were part of my upbringing and even today, a big part of our cooking.
I have the iron skillet that belonged to my great Grandmother, my Grandmother, my Mother and now me. My Mother used it until I was almost grown. It was the only thing my Mother had of her Mother’s. She passed away when my Momma was 5. It was so well used it had become thin and then the handle broke off. My Father took it…had the handle reattached and then painted it….black on outside and white on the inside to look like it did when it was new. He made a special holder for it and it’s hanging on my kitchen wall with a recipe for the chocolate pie filling that my Mother always made in it. It is a precious family treasure that will be passed on to my daughter!
I forgot to add….my daughter will be passing it on to her daughter who is 14, when she sets up her house!
Thanks for this! I LOVE monte cristos!!! This post makes me think of my grammy. She is still around, and used to make me strawberry- rhubarb cobbler in her old cast iron skillet. YUM!!! She doesn’t bake anymore (she’s almost 90), but I think of that cobbler from her cast iron skillet often. I don’t feel I can make it as good as she did. Thanks for the memories 🙂