Reset a Surface RT without recovery partition

I recently ran into an issue where I needed to reset my Surface RT (the original version released with Windows 8, but this tip is applicable to newer versions too). The problem was that I had deleted the recovery partition and of course long forgotten the USB drive or the place where I’d stored the copy of the recovery partition.
After some futile search on the Interwebz that all indicated downloading a Windows image from different questionable sources, I found the support page at Microsoft where you can get the official image without rolling the dice as to what you’re putting on your machine. Without much ado, here’s the page you want to use to help reset your Surface RT to factory settings – Microsoft Surface Images