Browning meat shortcut

We had a very successful antelope hunt, & I was so blessed to come home with lots of ground antelope meat to can!  However, the week following was also one of the most stressful of my entire life!  So I was very grateful someone had told me about this tip!  Although it spread out my canning to several days, & maybe took longer all together, it saved me a lot of actual work time.  And during a crisis saving time & energy is a blessing!

Unlike canning chicken, you need to brown ground beef (or antelope) before you put it in the jars.  Last year I had meat in the microwave defrosting, meat in 2 fry pans browning, meat having the grease drained off, & then meat going into jars.  I was going around this circle like a crazy tazmanian devil!!  My arms were tired from turning the meat as it browned, my stove top was a disaster to clean off!  This year, what a difference!  I browned the meat in the crockpot before hand!!  I borrowed a crockpot & had 3 going.  I could get 7 lbs in each one.  After browning that filled about 16-18 jars...not quite enough to fill my pressure cooker, but close enough.  The meat was defrosted, & on high it took around 3 hours to brown.  I would put it in, in the morning, homeschool my son, & then can what was browned that afternoon.  It seemed like a lot more fat cooked out this way too.  The last afternoon I was almost done, so I put more in to brown while the pressure cooker ran & depressurized.  If you want to get it all done in 1 day, this isn't the way to go.  But this week for me it was a lifesaver!!

If you're interested in my other posts on hunting antelope, using it for food storage, & cooking it in the solar oven, here's the links:
http://singlemompreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/10/hunting-for-food-storage.html
http://singlemompreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/10/canning-antelope.html
http://singlemompreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/10/antelope-sloppy-joes-in-solar-oven.html
http://singlemompreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/10/best-ever-jerky-antelope-or-beef-solar.html
http://singlemompreparedness.blogspot.com/2011/10/solar-antelope-or-beef-meatloaf.html