So in honor of finally making it to my local green market, I decided to pick up a vegetable I’d never prepared before – but love – beets.

Apparently they’re one of those “power” foods. Here’s why:

• high in vitamin C, potassium, niacin, pantothenic acid, and B-6.
• Raw beets are high in folates
• low in calories
• contain phytonutrients which provide antioxidants and help inflammation
• recent studies have shown regularly consuming them can shrink tumors
• some great other facts found here
• Also their greens have great nutrition too! (next step for me will be figuring out what to do with those…)

So since I’m new to cooking beets I decided to go easy!

• I cut off the tops of the beets, coated with olive oil and tossed into the oven at 425 for 40 minutes or until tender. (I had no idea what that meant, so I poked mine with a knife and it went in easily.)
• Let cool, rub off skin (I used latex gloves. Don’t need red hands at my shoot tomorrow…)
• and chop into cubes. Voila!  From there I’ve seen recipes saying to splash with lemon juice or toss in some goat cheese or feta. Have fun with it. (yeah I really just said to have fun with beets…)
• Ps – it’s jack russell approved.