Our new favorite television channel is The Cooking Channel, an edgier and more contemporary spinoff of the Food Network.  The Cooking Channel brings the focus back to food and cooking, instead of the Food Network’s increasing push to give us reality-based shows with the endless array of challenges and competitions, complete with contrived kitchen drama.  The Cooking Channel lineup still includes some familiar faces like Giada, Emeril, and Bobby, doing what they do best – teach us how to cook and tell us where to find good food!  If you want to learn what to do with a secret ingredient like skirt steak (pictured above), give Michael Symon’s show, How to Cook Like an Iron Chef a try.  If you want to know what Montreal restaurant chef Chuck Hughes cooks on his day off, watch Chuck’s Day Off.  Both these chefs will entertain you while teaching you a thing or two about cooking.

We also like to watch Unique Eats, a show that gives us a peak at the new and exciting culinary trends in restaurants today.  It is a bit New York-centric, but the show does manage to venture out to show that there are unusual and innovative restaurants in many other cities in America.  No trip to NYC is complete without visiting a restaurant that we’ve seen on this show.  So far, we’ve been to Buttermilk Channel for their version chicken and waffles,  Fette Sau for barbecue amid the hipsters in Brooklyn, and stood in line for 45 minutes at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park for some good burgers and custard.

Last night, we had a small dinner party and we served Skirt Steak with Tomatillo Salsa and Creme Fraiche.  Everyone seemed to enjoy it so I thought I’d share the recipes with you all from Michael Symon’s  How to Cook Like an Iron Chef.