Dick Cheney Cheese Pull

Don't rearrange any word in that title

Part of what makes Cookin’ with Congress so much fun for me is that I never know where I’m going to find the delight. Sometimes, I know right off the bat that a recipe is going to be truly and utterly disgusting (fun). Other times, it’s a name that pulls me in right away and the wordplay does all the work even if the recipe itself isn’t too shabby (fun). Obviously, the cooking aspect is fun, but there’s joy to be had whenever the instructions are hot garbage and I find myself obliterating a recipe that had decent potential (even that, is fun).

The Dick Cheney Cheese Pull is a whole other kind of fun, where the recipe itself was semi-benign (minus one ingredient), the chef is famous but the name of the actual recipe (Chili Con Queso) isn’t inherently funny, and the instructions are clear. So where’s the extra fun? It came in the experience of cooking Cheney’s Chili Con Queso, in a moment with a pound of shredded cheddar cheese. I stirred the mixture of butter, onions, cream of mushroom soup (that’s the one ingredient), and cheddar, pulled my spoon out and it looked like a commercial for Chicago deep dish pizza. Oozing, gooey cheese pull.

Here’s an article talking about why cheese pulls are not real, but Dick Cheney’s was, and so, in watching the footage, I gave verbal birth to the “Dick Cheney Cheese Pull.” Quickly, viewers on TikTok and Instagram noted that the phrase sounded like something on Urban Dictionary.

The question is: which one of you will lead the charge?

Who knows what second life Dick Cheney’s Chili Con Queso may have, but here’s his recipe, and I have a few suggestions without changing the core of the dish I’ve included below.

Ingredients

• 2 packages shredded cheddar cheese (approx. 2 pounds)

• 1 can cream of mushroom soup

• 1 small can tomatoes

• 3-4 small cans chopped green chiles

• 2 chopped onions

• 3 cloves minced garlic

• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

• 1 tsp red chili powder

• 1 tsp cumin, oregano, celery seed, garlic salt and pepper

Instructions

Cook onions and garlic in butter until transparent. Add 1/2 can soup and grated cheese. Stir until melted. Add remaining ingredients, stirring frequently. Simmer for 1 hour. Serve in crock pot. Don’t make up the night before and reheat.

My Notes

I halved the recipe since I wasn’t hosting a party with Rummy and Ashcroft, but you do what you have to with 2 pounds of bagged cheese. You can’t exclude the cream of mushroom soup, that’s his disturbed signature ingredient. Would cream of bacon be better? Or just…milk? Sure. Yes. But that would steal the soul from this dish, wouldn’t it? What I would do, if making again, is double all the spices, add some very thin slices of fresh Serrano pepper, and go for fresh tomatoes, at least in part.

Enjoy your Dick Cheney Cheese Pull.

Stay fun,

-Bennett