I was at Trader Joe’s and saw polenta in a tube & bought it. Now I don’t know what I should do with it. Any ideas?
Treat it like the world’s hardest jigsaw puzzle and try to reassemble the individual kernels of corn?
Chill it, slice it, fry it, cover it in cheese and serve with your main. Delicious!
Slice, brush with olive oil, and grill. I usually serve it this way with some Italian sausages and some spaghetti sauce. Not a lot of sauce.
Throw it out.
I can’t do polenta. Smells like feedlot.
I slice it very thin, fry it in butter (for at least 10 minutes, til the edges are crispy), and serve with maple syrup. When I was a kid, my mother made this, but it was called “fried cornmeal mush.” She’d press the cooked cereal into a loaf pan then chill, slice when it was solid, fry, and serve as described. I can’t think of this dish as savory, although I know it’s commonly served with cheese and tomato sauce.
Polenta, heated (fry pan or microwave), a smear of Portuguese pepper paste (hot or sweet as your taste prefers), and a slice of mozzarella cheese melted on top makes a pretty tasty snack.
Have you smelled a feedlot recently? Feedlots smell like the concentrated waste of ten thousand cows.
Polenta smells like corn. A different, perhaps objectionable, but different, smell.
I just had polenta for lunch (which I made from scratch, one of the easiest possible things to make from scratch). I topped it with some leftover refried beans, cheddar cheese, and fresh tomatoes. It was dang good.
This is the way I usually serve it. Any leftover slices (not likely!) get refried a bit and served with bacon and eggs for breakfast.
I have a great recipe for braised short ribs. I usually serve it over cheese grits, but I have done it over sliced, fried polenta cakes and it was also awesome.
I make my own polenta with sage and Parmesan cheese, then slice and fry, top with poached eggs. A favorite savory breakfast treat. I don’t see any reason you couldn’t use a tube of polenta in the same way.
Use Polenta Helper?
Ok, to clarify; not a giant Kansas or Texas feedlot. So I’ll say that polenta smells like a amaller-farm feed lot in Iowa.
Where the cattle are fed corn.
And they shit the corn.
Which smells like corn.
Which smells like polenta.
I’ll admit I’m a bit envious of people who can eat polenta without that association.
This! Still one of my favorite breakfasts!
Yuuummm. With crisp bacon. 
The nice thing about Trader Joe’s polenta is that it has a nice long shelf life (altho I do refrigerate it) so you can keep it on hand. I usually fry it in a little butter then serve with spaghetti sauce and if I’m lucky enough to still have some venison sausage I slice that up and put it in the sauce. Mmm. And I’m sorry for the feedlot stuff; polenta is really good. I don’t make it from scratch as every time I have tried it has been lumpy. TJ’s polenta is always handy and never lumpy.
Yeah, all that stuff. Polenta is cornmeal mush, or grits. Use it like any grain, sweet for breakfast, savory for dinner.
If you have one of those bean-pebble patio surfaces, use it as spackle.