Hawaiian Pork Tacos inspired by Everything, Everything

Cook Rating: ★★★★☆          Book Rating: ★★★★★

*this post may contain spoilers*

Hey everyone! For the first food and book connection on this blog I decided make Hawaiian Pork Tacos inspired by Nicola Yoon's Young Adult novel Everything, Everything! I read this book over a year ago, however it remains one of my favorites. The story centers around teenager Maddy Whittier, who has a rare medical condition that causes extreme allergic reaction to basically everything. Because of this, she isn't able to leave her house. Her only human contact is her mom, nurse, and tutor. This all changes when Olly, "tall, lean, and wearing all black" moves next door. The two first come in contact through an unfortunate bundt cake and later become friends over email and text. Maddy and Olly, of course, end up involved in a beautiful romantic relationship, but due to Maddy's illness, they are extremely limited. Olly's vitality leads Maddy to risk her health and go outside to see the world, so the couple travels to Hawaii to satisfy her lifelong dream of seeing the ocean.

I won't say any more because I don't want to spoil anything that I don't have to!

The idea to make tacos came to me initially because the two main characters of the novel go to Hawaii. After thinking about it for longer, however, I realized there are many other reasons why this was a good choice other than the obvious. The book is an incredibly entertaining and colorful read, because the dialogue is funny, the characters are interesting, and the author includes drawings, text conversations, and letters in different fonts to spice things up. Because of this, I tried to my hardest to make these tacos as colorful as possible, using orange peppers, green cilantro, red tomato, yellow pineapple, and purple-red onion.

Recipe for Everything Everything Hawaiian Pork Tacos

Ingredients:
Meat Mix                                                Salsa                                             
1 Pound Ground Pork                             1 1/2 Cup Crushed Pineapple 
1/2 Cup Diced Orange Bell Pepper        1/2 Cup Orange Bell Pepper
1/4 Cup Red Onion                                1/4 Cup Red Onion
1/2 of a Jalapeño                                    2 TBSP Chopped Cilantro
1/3 Cup GF Soy Sauce                           1 Lime
      (San-J is a great brand)                     3/4 Cup Corn     
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar                             1 Cup Diced Tomato
                                                             
Other
 Shredded Cheese (as much as you want 😄)
 Soft Corn Tortillas (I used Guerrero's Corn Tortillas- they're delicious!)

Directions:


1. Chop red onion, bell pepper, and jalapeño and place into a bowl.

2. Separately, mix brown sugar, soy sauce, and pineapple juice drained from the crushed pineapple can.

3. Unpackage ground pork and place in a pan on medium heat. Then slowly add mixtures from steps 1 and 2.        Continuously stir until the meat is a nice dark brown color.

4. For the salsa, place all ingredients into a large mixing bowl and refrigerate.

5. Wrap corn tortillas in tin foil and place into the oven for 10-15 minutes to achieve toasty warm tortillas.

6. After 20-25 minutes of the pork cooking, turn off the stove.

7. Place desired amount of meat on tortilla, then add desired amount of cheese on top of that.

8. Place salsa on top of meat and cheese.

9. Squeeze extra lime on your creation and enjoy!

These tacos were oh-so delicious! They had so much flavor and pizazz to them. I only gave them 4/5 stars because I think they could've been a bit spicier, but that was mainly due to not knowing that seeds in Jalapeños MUST be removed, so I had to throw half of a Jalapeño out.

That's all for now folks!

-Mary 💖

“Life is a gift. Don't forget to live it.” 
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything