cooking birthday dinner for my nana and my dad: Steak, Italian Chicken, & tons of sides!

My name is Joey. I'm 17 years old, and I cook dinner for my family. Today I'm making a birthday dinner for my Nana and my dad. Okay, so it's about 10:30 in the morning of the birthday dinner, and I'm going to marinate my chicken and my steak. I'm doing grilled Italian chicken. So I'm adding an entire 24 ounce container of Italian dressing to a gallon size bag. To that same bag, I'm going to add in two pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. You can also marinate vegetables in the dressing if you want to cook vegetables with your chicken. Then I'm gonna seal this up, getting out as much of the air as I can. I'm doing four pounds of chicken total. For my steaks, I'm going to add in some Worcestershire sauce. Um, how much? I don't know. I'm just doing it to my heart's desire. This is probably about a tablespoon per steak. I'm also adding in some salt. Ideally, I would use Montreal steak seasoning instead of salt, but I only have a teaspoon, maybe two teaspoons left in my bottle, so I'm adding that in. Finally, I'm adding about a teaspoon of thyme, garlic powder, and onion powder. I'm gonna mix that up a little bit. Finally, I'm adding in my rib eye. I got three 1 pound rib eyes. You can really do any steak you want. I just like the texture of the ribeye and do my best to coat Each steak in the seasoning mix, but these are going in the fridge. I'm starting first with my mashed potatoes, so I do about one potato per person, and I'm using Yukon Gold potatoes. And if you didn't know, the tip of a peeler is to get out the eyes of potatoes. Now I'm going to cut each potato into large chunks. I'm gonna add them into a pot without any water or anything. I'm also going to add a little bit of better than bouillon like chicken better than bouillon. You can also use chicken stock or bullion cubes. Pour water over it until my potatoes are covered by half inch or an inch of water. I'm gonna bring my pot to a boil and let my potatoes boil for 20 minutes. Now that my potatoes are done boiling, I'm going to strain them and then mash them to mash my potatoes to the chunkiness that I like. You can also use a potato ricer or a fork if you don't have a masher. Now that I've mashed my potatoes, I'm going to add in maybe a quarter cup of heavy cream with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and thyme. I'm going to mix that all together and see if it's to a consistency that I like. If it's too thick, I'm gonna add more cream, and if it's too runny, you can add instant mash to help thicken it back up. For my bacon wrapped asparagus, I'm gonna Snap the bottoms off of all of these pieces of asparagus. About four pieces of asparagus for each piece of bacon, and I'm wrapping it around as best and as tightly as I can. Okay, I was off by, like, one piece of bacon, which I'm just gonna lay on the tray to cook with everything else. I was going to grill my chicken thighs, but it's raining, and I don't feel like trying to get a tent out. So what I'm going to do instead, I have a baking sheet with the cooling rack on top, and I'm just gonna place the thighs as evenly as I can on the baking sheet. I had too much chicken anyway to fit on the whole rack, so I had to get out a second rack anyway. But all of my chicken is gonna go in the oven at 400 for 30 to 35 minutes. While my chicken's cooking, I'm gonna work on my steaks. The first thing I'm doing is heating up my cast iron on medium high heat with some oil. Now that my oven is at 20 minutes, I'm going to put my asparagus in. Now that my pan is hot, I'm going to add my steak and cook them for about three or four minutes per side. It's been about three minutes, so I'm gonna go ahead and flip the steaks and cook them for about four more minutes. Now I'm gonna flip them and cook them for about A minute on the side. Now I'm gonna put some butter on each. Okay. I let my steak cook for a little bit longer than a minute because it wasn't at 130°F yet, which 130°F is what I'm aiming for. So I'm going for a medium steak. Go ahead and take it out and move it over to a separate pan to rest. I'm going to go ahead and take my chicken out of the oven. For my corn, I'm gonna add a cup of water to my instant pot. Then I'm going to place in all of my corn as best as I can. Put my lid on, and I'm gonna set it to cook manual for two minutes. For my mushrooms, I added some oil and butter to a pan on medium heat. To my mushrooms, I'm gonna add about a tablespoon of soy sauce. You don't wanna do this beforehand, or it'll pull too much moisture out of the mushrooms. I'm gonna do my best to just shake them up. Now I'm gonna add my mushrooms into my pan. Ideally, you would let these cook undisturbed for about four or five minutes until they're brown. Um, I'm gonna cook them for a little bit longer because I just transferred them to a new, not hot pan. So I'm gonna make a really simple gravy. I'm just gonna add in some drippings from my steak to my beef drippings. I'm gonna add in 2 tablespoons of all purpose Flour. Mix that together and cook it until my flour starts to brown. Here's what it's looking like. Well, ideally, before you begin to burn, your roux. And your roux will have more liquid. I just didn't add enough. You're going to pour in some beef broth, a little bit at a time, mixing it together until it combines. It'll get thick, and then you'll add some more. So here is what my gravy is looking like. It's thicker, and it's kind of grainy, because I didn't totally make it right. And then I'm gonna whisk. It's been about four or five minutes since my pan got hot, so I'm gonna add in some fresh thyme, and I'm gonna stir this occasionally for about another five minutes. My gravy is getting thicker, and it's pretty smooth, actually. So I'm just gonna let that cook, sit on the burner with the burner on low. Um, and I'll turn it off right before I'm ready to serve it. Now that my mushrooms are done, I'm going to pull out all of the time that I can.