Q: Is there a way to recover documents that were printed 2 and 3 years ago. They are listed in the drop down for my printer (xc500 epson)?

If the documents are still on hard drive, then yes. If they have been deleted after printing, no.

Start where you normally save documents to, presumably your documents folder. If not there, do a search in Spotlight.

If the documents were not saved they are not on your hard drive and Spolight will not find them!

Always worth picking up the phone and calling the manufacturer.  Costs little and should get another viewpoint ... (Though you won't normally get better than Klaus ).

It is just possible that the printer still has those documents cached (as they are still listed). Did you try to print them?