How about "German Green Beans". You can make ahead and put in oven or crock pot to keep warm. Basically you fry out a couple slices of bacon and diced onion and toss cooked green beans with them. Add a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar and a splash of vinegar, some salt and pepper, and there you have it. I like it with fresh or canned green beans (not the frenched ones). I don' t care for frozen beans though. If you are buying canned green beans, buy a good brand like Delmonte or Green Giant. All you need to do is to heat this in the oven. Done.

Thought not pretty, an easy and tasty to make ahead of time dish is Lithuanian kugelis. My mom or I often do it up to three days in advance, then on that day, while the roast is resting, we cut it into chunks and pan fry it (though this does not have to be done at all).

Okay, let's talk Yorkshire pudding. I don't think I ever had this before I made it. It is not the standard accompaniment for prime rib in Wichita. In Wichita, the standard accompaniment for prime rib is a waitress in a short skirt at the Scotch & Sirloin. Anyway, I made one. It was sort of like a souffle à styrofoam packing materiel. I don't think I was quite getting the concept. I get the idea there should be meat juices involved, somewhere. My rib roast will be on the Weber, presumably, making meat juices harder to obtain. What do I need to do here to get fluffy, popover-like Yorkshire puddings that taste of the beef, not of UPS?

Mike,

Consider rendering some suet to get the beefy taste in your Yorkshire puddings. Cook's Illustrated has a nice tutorial on how to make them.

Regards,

Again, thanks for all the great suggestions, which I will continue reference in the future.

We ended up going with the roasted root veggies, which were a huge hit. I was shocked but 2 entire half sheets of them were devoured tonight by my family. It was the surprise hit of the dinner. We used a mix of russet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, brussels sprouts and red onion. I diced them, coated them with a mixture of peanut and canola oil, seasoned with kosher salt and fresh-ground black pepper and baked them for about 75 minutes, at 350 F, stirring occasionally. At the half-way point, I added the onions (tossed olive oil and seasoned), which cook much faster than the other ingredients. At the very end, I blasted the oven to 425 F/convection and put a light crusting on the veggies . . .



Sheet pans of veggies await their final blasting of heat



Oven roasted root veggies with brussels sprouts and red onions

As for the second side dish, as luck would have it, some saintly friends offered to make us a pan of spanikopita because we'd shared a recipe with them. They were, without a doubt, the best rendition I'd ever had, and that sentiment was echoed by several of our guests . . .


Hand-made spanikopita, which were delectable



A closer look at the spinach-cheese-pie triangles

Again, a big thanks to everyone who posted suggestions here. I can foresee trying most, if not all, of them out over the next few months.

=R=

Those spanakopitas look just like the ones I had in Greece! I've never been too happy with the ones in restaurants here, too pie like. Now I need to break out the Greek cookbook and make up a batch!