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 love your receipes and all your post, I just bought the Taste of the South and made the roasted chicken and vegetables for Sunday Lunch, Very good! I to have my family Black skilletts, Love to make pineapple upside cake in them. Have corn muffins and muffins pans, I have no idea how old they are. Strange how all this comes back around to younger generations. Thanks for all your sharing.
I plan to go to the cornbread festivial this spring. Hope to see you there. A neighbor,
Gail
I am the proud owner of two round iron skillets and another that bakes cornbread into individual wedges. One of the skillets was given to me by my Mom and it is over a hundred years old. I also store mine in my oven. Such a good place. I also use Martha White cornmeal. There’s none better.
My mom used a small round skillet to make cornbread. I have this small skillet and I make cornbread in it and always think of my mom. I am 57 and cannot remember a time when we did not have the little round skillet.
I can not live without my cast iron! I learned to cook with cast iron. I remember when my mama taught me how to make cornbread in her square cast iron skillet that was saved just for cornbread. I didn’t know that cornbread came any way but squares! I inherited that skillet and several more plus have added quite a few more of my own. Now my daughter cooks with cast iron (that I have past down to her)!
I can not make cornbread in any other kind of skillet except cast iron.
I have other cookware but nothing else comes close when making cornbread.
What stores have the Monte Cristo skillets?
Doris, l’m with you! There’s no baking pan or skillet ever made that can turn out corn bread as good as an old fashioned cast iron skillet. With a nice crust on the bottom…. If I have some left over I even warm it up in my iron skillet. ,
I wish I had a cast iron skillet!
One day I will get over my fear of cast iron cookware…… its that season and keep seasoned that worries me ……
Look around second hand stores and buy a used one that has already been seasoned. Just don’t buy one if you see rust on it.
Don’t know if you have a Cracker Barrel restaurant near but they sell seasoned cast iron and have a very nice selection usually behind the cashiers on your way out.