Meatloaf Stew

Have you guys ever had Dinty Moore beef stew when you're camping?  I hate camping, but I do love to open 2 big cans of Dinty Moore and dump them into our cast iron pot and cook it over an open fire.  Sometimes I add that "just-add-water" biscuit mix and put it over the top and it's one pot full of yummy beef stew and biscuits.  Dinty Moore is gluten free.  Obviously the biscuits aren't.  This past summer I just pulled my portion out before I added the biscuit batter on top.  It's one of the few good things about camping.  It looks gross though.  Sometimes I buy a can and bring it to work if we have no leftovers I can bring for my lunch.  I call it "dog food" because that's what it looks like.  When I was growing up, we used to give our dogs canned dog food and it kinda looks like that (DM smells better though)...it loses some of it's charm when you warm it up in a hospital cafeteria microwave versus over a camp fire.  So the whole time I made this recipe, I was thinking, this does not look good.  But it smelled good right along.  And tasted pretty good too.  I took lots of pictures of this one so you can see what I mean.  This is from the GF Hiebert's Amish cookbook.

Meatloaf Stew
¼ cup water
6 potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
6 carrots, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
salt and pepper
1 egg
1/3 cup ketchup
2 tsp bouillon powder
1/3 cup finely chopped onion (or 1/2 tsp onion powder)
¼ tsp thyme
¼ cup water
1/3 cup GF bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
1 ½ lbs ground beef (or mixture of ground beef & ground turkey)

Pour first 1/4 cup of water into crock pot.  Add potatoes and carrots; sprinkle with salt and pepper. 

Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Spread over potatoes and carrots.

Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.

Then I chunked it up with a serving spoon to get the finished product:

Doesn't that look awful?? And nobody wanted to eat it...we had 5 kids here, and all of them were like...um, I'm not hungry.  But I gave everyone just a small portion, and 3 of them went back for more.  It did taste very good, and it smelled great in the kitchen all day.  I'm keeping the recipe, because it tasted good.  I meant to have this with biscuits but I ran out of time.  Next time I will....