Ground beef

So I've been looking into some component cooking. Its basically prep done well before you cook, in large doses. Yesterday, Albertsons had 85/15 ground beef for 1.47/lb, so I bought 5.5lbs. Thats more ground beef than I've bought in the last year, because chicken's usually so much cheaper. Anyway, I figured I should attempt one of the component cooking ideas, so I did. I did two things -- straight cooked ground beef (slightly seasoned) and meatballs. I did 1.5lbs in meatballs, baked them, and separated them into 3 bags. They're freezing. The rest of it, I boiled. Weird shit, no? I used the last of the broth from the roast I made, some seasoned salt, and some fresh ground pepper in whatever amount of water covered the meat. I started that right before I started on the meatballs. It doesn't take too long at all, and now I have cooked ground beef in 1/2-1lb portions in my freezer. If I want to make tacos or shepard's pie, it'll take one less step. The only thing I'd change is to get a bigger chamois. I have a tiny tiny one, so it took forever to drain the meat. The liquid/fat (which pretty much all drains off) is cooling, waiting til I toss it in a jar and toss it. Anyway, this seems like it'd work well for the fattier ground beef. OH! The other plus is it crumbles pretty fine, which I can never seem to do. Great for tacos.

Anyway, now I have 4lbs of cooked ground beef in the freezer, and like 50 meatballs. Amazing.

Side note: i need to learn to make better meatballs. these tasted kinda like meatloaf. awesome.