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!
While I was growing up the only type of skillets I knew were cast iron and it still cant be beat. My Mama had a square one you did not touch except for frying eggs. It was a 10 inch. I still wish for one. Then we fried chicken in a cast iron chicken fryer and beans were cooked in another cast iron dutch oven and we had cast iron just for cornbread and biscuits. There is nothing like cast iron.
Wow my mom just asked me where my grandma’s skillet was yesterday….My grandma used a medium sized skillet everyday to cook our breakfast…she also had a huge one that would fit a whole chicken for frying…..wonderful memories in her kitchen.
I love Monte Cristo sandwiches! This recipe sounds just wonderful. I’m definitely going to be making this for DH! Thanks so much for picking this recipe!!
I have a set of cast iron skillets, but I find that when I make cornbread in it, the cornbread has an iron taste to it, so I cook my cornbread in pyrex to give it a cleaner taste.
My Mommy gave me her cast iron skillet that her Mother in law gave her. I had it about four years when my Husband thought we should take it on our family camping trip, And of course we left it at the campground. My husband would not drive back to get it. And some 30 years later I still cry about my castiron skillet.
I have my husband’s grandma’s pancake skillet. Makes the best crepes in the world. I also have my Nan’s magic chicken stew pot that makes her chicken stew every time. I treasure these.
Cast Iron…………….way too many memories. I know I love mine. Some I bought, some passed down. Mom has one, that she has cooked cornbread (and nothing else) in, as long as I can remember. My Mom does not cuss, but I bet, if I were to go to the house, pull it out and just act like I’m going to cook a piece of meat in that skillet. I would bring a cussing back home with me. I love my dutch ovens, they cook a good balsamic beef roast, or pork roast. And I, like my Mom have a dedicated cornbread skillet. And one I only use for breakfast meat , sawmill gravy and redeye gravy. Mom passed down a waffle maker, it is old. Scared to use it. Im sure it would make a mess of some waffles. And then , I have 4 irons. lol not going to be ironing clothes with an electric iron much less one of these.