Skip navigation

On data: Collecting

Guys. I’m excited.  I just got my Microsoft Band 2.  I’ve been wearing the first gen Band since its release. Yes, I was an early adopter of a Microsoft product.  A rare occurrence for me.  To be an early adopter of anything really, not just of Microsoft products.  But particularly of Microsoft.

But anyway, I’m excited because the Band and Band 2 means…data collection.  And I have recently come to realize that I get an inordinate amount of pleasure from collecting data.

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I wear a Fitbit.  I went from the Flex, which I liked quite a bit, to a Force, which I also liked quite a bit, almost to a Charge, but then Microsoft released their Band right after I preordered the Charge.  So…I ended up impulse buying the Band and then cancelling my order with Fitbit.  I did end up getting a Fitbit One because THEM provides a wellness program that recognizes data from Fitbit but not Microsoft, so…I found it necessary to wear two fitness trackers for data collection.

You might wonder what I do with all this data.  Do I crunch it?  First of all, I have no idea what that means.  I’ve never found data to be particularly crunchy.  And also, no.  I mostly just look at it.  I might plot and trend it, I might use to calculate other things, but mostly I get a lot of pleasure out of just collecting it.  Some people collect souvenir spoons.  I collect data.  I may also collect dust, but that’s another story.

You might also wonder how I realized I liked collecting data so much.  It’s really because I’ve started running again.  You might know of my hate-hate relationship I have with running as a form of exercise.  Actually looking back, I apparently haven’t written very much about it on this blog.  But collecting data while running has made running so much more bearable.  I will go for a run almost exclusively for the data now.  The exercise is really a bonus at this point.  Data.  Important.

The sad thing is, I’ve been sidelined from running for the next month or so.  So I can’t use my new Band to track my running stats.  I am tracking stats from the lower impact stuff I’m doing right now though.  It’s…just not as fun as collecting running stats.

I make! Sweet onion tart edition

You know how sometimes you have a Costco bag of Texas sweet onions in your pantry and you really need to do something to get rid of them?  Oh, maybe it’s just me?  Well, I did find myself in such a predicament recently and I decided that I would make a sweet onion tart.  Because you know…I have tart pans and I want to use them.  And I had an excessive number of onions sitting in my pantry.IMAG00487

Tada!  This one obviously is a baked tart and it doesn’t use a crumb tart shell like the previous fruit tarts I’ve been making.

I made the crust from this French Onion Tarte recipe because I was too lazy to find the one I normally use.  It’s not a bad crust.  It bakes up very nice and crisp.  It isn’t terribly flaky, but then again, it’s not a pie crust either.  It is VERY buttery though.  I probably won’t be using this crust recipe again.  Also, remember to dock and weight when you blind bake.  I…may have forgotten.

For the filling, I decided to sauté two onions, thinly sliced, and threw in the remaining bacon pieces I had from something else.  I also ended up throwing in about 1.5 tbsp of dried thyme in an effort to get rid of some thyme.  Salt and pepper per usual.

For a little more flavor, I did end up spreading a thin layer of whole grain mustard on the bottom of the crust before dumping the onion mixture in.  And then as I was looking at it, I decided that I needed something to bind the filling together, so I whisked up two eggs and poured that over the onion mixture.  And then I remembered I had some sheep’s milk feta still in the fridge and that would go well with everything already in the tart, so I crumbled up about 2oz of that and sprinkled it over the top.  And then I finally put it in the oven at 425degF for about 30min before I ended up throwing half the contents of my fridge on top of the tart.

End result was very good.  I think I’d made this again.  I’ve had it both as a light dinner paired with a salad and also for breakfast.  It would work really well for brunch too.

IMAG00488

I do not much feel like writing this into a recipe format.

Oh and here’s a bonus fruit tart that I made with the other tart pan that I have.  Fruit tarts just look so nice.

IMAG00491