Beets me.

This past spring, we enthusiastically planted a bunch of golden beets without giving much thought to what happens after (if) they actually grow. We enjoy eating beets on goat cheese salads, but the beets in the salad look decidedly different than what comes out of the ground.

Off to the internet we went, searching for the easiest way to prepare beets for human consumption.

Ultimately, we decided to wash them pretty well (we have a 7 month old and a 5 year old and “pretty well” is about as good as anything gets around here), toss them in some extra virgin olive oil, wrap them in foil and throw them into the oven, and see what happened.

Turns out, that’s a super simple, delicious way to get your beets salad-ready.

Here’s the steps we used:

• Preheat oven to 425, and politely ask 5 year old if we can take a quick break from discussing the Avengers.

• Wash beets as long as you can before the 5 year old starts talking about the Avengers, again (roughly 4 minutes).

• While oven preheats, dry beets and lay on aluminum foil, then coat with EVOO. Compare color of beets to color of Iron Man’s suit.

• Wrap in aluminum foil, and discuss whether Iron Man uses foil in his designs.

• Bake beets in foil and EVOO for 45-60 minutes, depending on how large they are. We went with 60 to be safe, but we have an older oven.

• Once beets are cooled, rinse and soak in cold water for a while (read: until you jump up from your desk in a panic, having forgotten you were soaking them). The skins will peel right off. Cut and enjoy!

As you can tell, we have an Avengers-obsessed kiddo in the house, so I’ll also add that if you feel like telling your kids that beets are a super food that Avengers eat and rely on to fight HYDRA agents, I’m not here to stop you.