Polenta-Shmolenta

I've been reading alot about polenta lately, so i decided to make it as a different side dish. The first time i made it, i served it with RR's Chicken Palliard and i must say, in a head to head battle, mine looked MUCH better then hers. lol. :)

However, the polenta, we were not impressed with. I mixed with with some butter and sprinkled(ok maybe not sprinkled, but you know) it with some Parmesan and it did nothing for this bland side dish. In fact bland is an understatement, it's bland-o-rama, blandissimo, tastes like nothing.

But instead of dumping it, i continued reading and found you can make polenta fries. So i figured ok, this is what's going to make or break polenta for me. So, for lunch i grilled up a chicken breast, some asparagus and fried the damn polenta in some olive oil and sprinkled more . Now, i HATE frying. I'm a disaster at it. When i fry, it splatters everywhere and i get burned and my house smells, in a nutshell i suck at frying. But i plugged ahead and did it anyway hoping to unlock the mystery of why so many love polenta. This was my result.

Looks good right?! Yeah well, now i have a lovely golden crispy crust to the bland bland bland polenta. Biting into it was nice, i will admit, crispy outter shell to a nice warm center, but again the flavor was just not there.

I'm not giving up on polenta though. I now understand that like most anything, you need quality polenta, and next time i'm at Epicure, i'm going to look for some good polenta and maybe a new mix in. But the instant polenta that i picked up at Publix... never again.