Last Sunday after recuperating, processing and cleaning up the last bit of our son’s 1st birthday party (blogpost coming soon), we decided to get out of the house and enjoy one of our usual pastimes, the Redlands.
There are several places we frequent however last fall a new spot opened up called Heritage Market. It’s precious! The space has an indoor restaurant, an outdoor pole barn with another spot to order food and a separate bar spot to place drinks ranging from brews, shakes, smoothies, homemade kombucha, teas and lemonade.
For entertainment they have a large playground for children, corn-hole, ping-pong tables and fields of grass, blooming garden beds, farm to table produce that you can get close and see all that they are growing and a pristine chicken coop where you can also purchase their beautiful and healthy eggs. They do $5 u-pick flowers (which change per season) and $5 feeding the chicken in the chicken coop! Such a fun and affordable outdoor activity for all.
They just happen to have a live band playing blues & folk but also songs from the 60’s & 70’s and I was here for it. You can expect live music to happen on their themed event days, which they post and update frequently on their Instagram.
If you take a quick look at their instagram, they have a variety of live music events but also fun vendor markets, Sunday Brunch ($5 mimosas) craft making classes and holiday themed weekends. Which I’m so sad they weren’t on my radar and I missed their fall pumpkin patch last year, definitely won’t be missing that this year!
If you have an itch to shop, they also have a mini storefront within their indoor restaurant where you can purchase their produce, local honey, preserves, tasty snacks, garden themed homedecor and more. I particularly loved the upstairs lounging area and definitely want to hangout more up there, maybe on hot day (currently enjoying Miami’s magic months and staying outside as much as possible).
For lunch we were in the mood for bbq and each had pulled pork, I got the sandwich and the hubs the flatbread, a couple of local brews, but before my beer I had to try their kombucha on tap. I got the ginger hibiscus and it was perfect. Soon after we perused the area with our little one, jammed to some music, marveled at the pollinator garden they have installed and relaxed.
Although they had delicious looking shakes, we realized we were only 10 minutes from Robert is Here and decided to pick up our usual order of vanilla & strawberry milkshakes.
I will admit, Sundays at Robert is here can be a 15-30 minute wait for your shake, but I did not mind. I roamed around the beautiful produce, checked out the local honey, random souvenirs, and then to my surprise they had fresh cacao pods. When buying produce, it only takes 2 minutes, as they separate the line from shakes to the actual store of goods. So while I was waiting I nabbed three, and a little backstory:
I’m a true chocolate lover through and through, I love it all and anytime there is cacao in anything I get it. Between my CSA talks on the gram, to my favorite immune boosting cacao mushroom hot chocolate by Sweet Bee Organics, my socials have been popping up (ah'em listening) with a bunch of tropical fruit boxes from different companies.
South Floridians are spoiled when it comes to produce, especially “exotic” fruits & veg. We either grow just about everything in the Caribbean and Central America or we have easy access and an abundance of said produce. So of course when seeing cacao pods thrown all over my socials, I’m like “damn, I’m really curious to try this fruit but also I wonder if can make my own cacao” not that I would be constantly making cacao, but learning and having a small batch would be a fun skill to learn. Only issue is, I hadn’t seen any cacao pods at my local farmers markets or box stores, but this time I was just focused on my shakes and divine timing blessed me with a nice pile of pods to choose from. Some of these companies charge $40-100 for either one or a pair, but at Robert is Here, they come out to $9 each!
The cacao seeds and flesh (really pulp) around it is kind of like eating mamoncillos except less flesh to eat around the seeds. The flavor is like a tart leechee. Some pods had more flesh around the seeds than others, which was a nice surprise. The taste really is great, has a lot of health benefits even before you get to the seed, I do not recommend giving this to young children as it definitely could be a choking hazard.
The best part was when it came to roasting, after a good handful of trying to eat the flesh around the seed, I was ready to grab the rest and roast.
I preheated the over to $400 degrees, brought it back to 350 and popped those in for about 20 minutes, flipped them over and then added increments of 5 minutes. Total time was 35 minutes. Every oven is different so play around with it. I think what blew me away was the smell in my house, it was like I was cooking a batch of rich brownies. You begin to smell the aroma in about ten minutes or so and it was bliss. You know how they tell realtors and home owners selling their home to bake something, I think a slow roast of cacao is stronger, lol.
These two spots made a very relaxing and well spent Sunday. Whether you want to go with your fam, special someone of that friend who's always up for anything, check out Heritage Market and finish your day at Robert is Here!
Like I said, the Redlands, Homestead, Keys too are common areas we enjoy and plan on highlighting more of as the month progress. Stay tuned and have a great week!
Watch how the day played out via our instagram reel HERE or visit our YouTube channel HERE.
