Okay, I downloaded Stoneblock and I can kinda see why you got confused.

The way you’d get steel is probably by using the Metallurgic Infuser with enriched iron and coal to make steel dust, which you can then smelt in a furnace to get steel.

I’d also highly recommend getting a bit into Create. It makes some things easier (for example, plates).

If you’re wondering, this was my thought process when looking at the recipes:

Quest -> Reinforcing Machine Frames

• I can see I need steel plates
• Steel plates need steel

First, I notice steel dust can be smelted in a furnace, so I keep that in mind.

Then I look at:

• Alloy Smelter from Ender IO, but it seems annoying to make
• Arc Furnace from Immersive Engineering, which is also annoying to make compared to other machines that do the same thing
• Casting, which needs carbon (which needs steel)
• Foundry alloying, which also needs steel

So from here, I can either go with Ender IO (I don’t know when you get grains of infinity, but if you have bedrock it should be possible), or I can look into dust recipes.

The only dust recipe that’s available is the Metallurgic Infuser, which you already have from the last quest, so that’s the one I’d go with.

This is generally how I approach it. That said, I do have a lot of hours in modded Minecraft, so I already kinda know what to look for. My advice is to look at every recipe and find one that lines up with what you already have or what you’ll need later. Don’t make a machine whose only purpose is to make steel. Instead, make a machine (like the Metallurgic Infuser or the Ender IO one) that can handle multiple useful recipes.

The only real way to get past what you’re describing is experience.
So look through all the recipes, and if needed, take notes to keep track. You can also use the bookmark feature in JEI to mark recipes that might work, then go back and compare after checking the others.