It’s time to prepare some great side dishes to go with some of our recent main entrees.

We have focused on meat and main dishes for the past few weeks, and fish, to show off my new fish basket.

We also included our old friend, meatloaf, for which everyone in town has a different recipe. We all tend to serve the same old side dishes with certain meals, especially the classic meatloaf, which doesn’t often appear without its sidekick, the baked potato. That pair hooked up many years ago, when we all had small children. We could put the meatloaf and potatoes in the oven, turn it down low and let it cook a couple of hours so we could get some much-needed rest while the kids were sleeping. That was in the days before slow cookers.