Do any of you guys drain the fat out of cooked ground beef by pouring it through a pasta strainer?

Mr. Clod does this, and it baffles and disgusts me.

Never thought of doing this, but it makes sense, sorta. Why does it baffle and disgust you?

Because... because it's a pasta strainer. It would be like cutting your steak with a cheese slicer, it's just not right. But that's just the baffling part. The disgusting part is the fat clogs the mesh and is a pain in the ass to clean out again.

Well yes but we just have strainers of various different gauges. They don't have specific names or purposes, we just use which ever one is clean and best fits the purpose. Only exception being the fine plastic sieve for flour. It would be nasty if either pasta or beef was strained through that.

line the colander with paper towels first. The fat still drains, but is soaked up by the paper towels, which you can then just discard.

I just use the lid. Easier to clean.

the lid of what? oh, by holding the lid of the pain over and pouring it out?

Hot. and awkward. but as long as you're not pouring the fat down the drain, it's okay. I actually have a strainer that's meant to be held over a pot like that. It's flat, and moon shaped sorta, and has a handle. That works, but I still think my paper towel idea is best, because you get rid of more fat like that.

Why use a colander at all if you don't intend to pour the fat anywhere? Also, from my experience with this method, I'd say the meat's going to stick to the paper towel and all that paper's not very environmentally friendly.... But if you wanted to use this method I'd suggest putting the towel under the colander so it can soak up the fat without touching the meat.

Maybe the difference in perceived best approach comes from quantities involved. I'm cooking for 5 -that's a whole load of fat to soak up.....

It's OK to pour fat down your waste disposer.

I just tilt the pan and scoop the meat upward to serve. The fat collects in the bottom while the meat gets pushed uphill. Then you have a pan full of nothing but grease, and you can either pour it down the garbage disposal, or pour it into an airtight container and save this freshly-rendered lard for other purposes. (I don't really do this, I'm just saying you could, if you wanted to go all Civil War Granny.)

ah, I usually add sauce/liquid ingredients after the fat is removed, so I need the meat in the pan and the fat elsewhere.

which is why I usually dump the whole thing into the colander, then it's easy to dump the meat back in the pan.

but I only cook for one, so 1 pound of meat is usually too much for me, so volume may affect your method, I agree

but doesn't the paper render the holes in the colander useless?

yes, and sometimes I just put it in a bowl. I guess I'm just used to thinking about straining into a colander so I usually reach for that.

I always buy lean mince (and most often turkey or Quorn) so it doesn't come up.
But my SIL's tip for cleaning up the fat after cooking sausages/ bacon (grilled or fried) is to soak it up with bread and feed it to the birds. Seems to work well. Dad's Mum used to save it for the next fry-up. Yummy.

I had garlic bread with lunch.
My breath now really stinks of garlic.
I have until 19.00 tonight to shift it. Am off the my bro's for the England game.
But the slattern in my head says, "They eat garlic anyway! Don't worry about it!"

Bad news: My air conditioning crapped out on me last night. Forecast for today: 103 degrees.

Good news: Advantage of renting--I called my apartment office and asked them to fix it, so when I came home today--blessed coolness!

Ahhhhh!