I know I’ve had this a long time because a) the label has changed on the jars and b) it was given to me by my Father in Law when he realised it contained celery, and he died not far off 2 years ago. I think he gave it to me (who lived over 200 miles away) because he thought that only vegans would ever use such a strange ingredient. The lid gave me some help:
No big thing.
I’ve never really known what to do with this and have almost thrown it in the bin many times but my hoarder instinct wouldn’t let me. It was described to me once as tasting like marmite with spinach juice in, which may be off putting to many people but which I liked, though obviously not enough to use it. Operation Theme MoFo to the rescue!
I opened it to be greeted with a pot of black tar. I gave it a sniff then put a tiny knife tip in and tasted it. Very salty with a deep vegetal undertone. In fact, pretty similar to the vegetable flavoured Better than Bouillon you can buy in America. I didn’t have much fresh food in so I decided to make the Brewpub TaterTot Casserole from American Vegan Kitchen. I’ve made it a couple of times before but this time I used finely chopped broccoli stalk, carrot and green pepper in the base just to use what I had. Instead of soaking the TVP in water and soy sauce, I used Vecon mixed with hot water, and I also used it for the broth that comes later in the recipe.
This recipe is a winner anyway, and the Vecon worked fine in it. I’m not sure I’d buy it, but I’ll definitely be able to use it again in places where I want a really dark strong vegetable stock. Have you ever used Vecon?
Cooking the Vegan Books 
ha! I love your fearless nature – tasting the vecon with the 2009 expiration! Recently I threw away some things with long-passed expiry dates… perhaps I didn’t need to! 🙂 I’ve never heard of Vecon, but I do have a nice little jar of Better than Bouillion wasting away in my fridge.
I have a jar of Vecon just sitting in my pantry unopened!I have no idea why I bought it, I think I need to do two things now though; buy American Vegan Kitchen and make this tater tot casserole.
We did similar things with pantry items found in my dads pantry when we inherited his house. Some of them went back 10 years! As a true hoarder I found it hard to toss things out so experimented with most of them and they were fine! I am not too sure if Vecon is available here in Australia? Might have to check it out BUT I am sure that the ubiquitous “vegemite” might suffice? 😉
Where did you get your tots? I used to be able to find them at Sainsbury’s, but they’ve stopped selling them!
Morrisons – called Potato Crunchies. They’ve been in my freezer a while though so hopefully they till make them.
I love a good pantry clean so I’ve been enjoying your posts. I have been moving around a lot in the last couple of years so no more collecting excess bits but I remember my last full full kitchen . . . anyway I have never heard of vecon but I might suggest these roast potatoes http://elizaveganpage.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/marmite-roasted-potatoes.html . She uses marmite but I suspect vecon would work too and I have to say these are so frikin yum. And more importantly I have been missing my tots. I am so hitting up Morrisons on my next shopping trip!