Corn bread+ instant polenta

I've been reading through cookingforengineers.com for awhile now, but I never really got around to making anything until last night. They had a recipe for sweet cornbread which was actually really good. It tastes more like the Jiffy corn bread mix, as opposed to buttery corn bread with a side of butter that's wrapped in a bit more butter. There's actually no butter in this. They came out a bit on the dry side, but, again, it's corn bread and it probably wants some butter, which I am opposed to doing.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease an 8x8" or 9x9" pan.

Combine:

1 c cornmeal
1 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt (I forgot it at first and I tasted the batter because, well, I'm me and I was wondering what was wrong until I realized what I had forgotten)
1/2 sugar
1 tbs baking powder

1/3 c vegetable oil (I used corn oil)
1 c whole milk
1 large egg (take out the albumen)

Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones. Yum. Bake for ~20 minutes or so, or at least until you can put a toothpick in the center and have it come out clean.

So yeah, it came out a bit dry, but it was a lot sweeter and lighter than the previous attempt. I guess it's just a matter of personal taste (pun?) when it comes to corn bread. Given my non-existent sweet tooth, this could seriously be my birthday cake.

So after that, I had the brilliant idea of trying to make polenta because I apparently love love love corn meal. I stole Chris' instant polenta and had at it. Essentially you boil 3 c water and then add 1 c polenta mixture and 1 tsp salt and just stir for five minutes. This is only the instant kind. I figure that one day I'll make it for realsies. I didn't have *that* much flavor. It kind of reminded me of cream of wheat, except way thicker. Or that time I brought cream of wheat to work for lunch and it was all gross and coagulated. I decided to try to fry it, but it didn't work. I used too much oil because I had seen it deep-ish fried so i was trying that. I still have a bunch left that I guess I'm going to experiment with later.

Also, my new favorite trick is to take a piece of food, hand it to someone and say "try it", and then watch them eat.