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!
My mother would always fry chicken in her large skillet. She wash’t from the south, born in Iowa, but she sure could fry chicken. I asked for it every year for my birthday dinner with mashed potatoes and gravy,the gravy also made in that skillet from the drippings!! Mmmmm!
I have alway been told that you only cook cornbread in a cast iron skillet. so when I moved out on my own my grandmother gave me a nice seasoned cast iron skillet of my own! Well this year my daughter has been learing to cook from my uncle. He has taught her to cook salmon patties in the cast iron skillet and to cook stewed potatoes! That is her favorite meal!
I have a very small cast iron skillet from my grandmother( who lived to 99) and my daughter will only eat my hamburgers if it is cooked in it. I has this wonderful flavor that no other one has.
My favorite cast iron #8 skillet is my ‘cornbread skillet’ and is used for nothing else. I found this skillet at a yard sale priced at $1 back in the late 60’s; the nice lady said “I would have cleaned it up if I had any idea someone would buy it”. Under my breath, I said to myself “and I wouldn’t have wanted it if you had cleaned it up”. I placed the skillet in the fireplace during a nice fire, burned it off, allowed it to cool, washed and dried well, rubbed it down with solid Criso and placed it in a plastic bag to season. After a couple days it was ready for baking beautiful cornbread. It isn’t used daily now as a pan of cornbread lasts a long time for 2 people; I slice and wrap individually in foil and freeze the extra. I only have to wipe it out with paper towels when still warm and it is ready to go. Also have my grandmother’s cornstick pan and several more cast iron skillets. The beautiful designed muffin pan disappeared many years ago. I am finding as I grow old(er), they are becoming harder for me to lift and place in or out of the oven. They will be passed down to my granddaughters who will probably promptly put them in a dishwasher. LOL!
When I got engaged to my (now) husband, the minister’s wife gave me a cast-iron skillet as a wedding gift. I love using it. I have never burned anything in it in 31 years of marriage. Since I am not the best cook in the world, it
is as though God is watching out for my and my cooking when I use it.
My husband gave me a set when we got married! he knew the way to my heart! i LOVE my cast iron skillets! when is the cornbread festival, South Pitt isn’t far from where we live in Cleveland…..Sooooo gonna be there! lol….and actually, Lodge Cast Iron is up there too!
I gave my daughter all my cast iron cookware as I can no longer lift it, my hands are bad but let me tell you I sure miss it! Nothing is better than cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet. I had several skillets, a dutch oven and several other smaller pots.