Instead of potato chips.

Normally, I have plenty of artichokes this time of the year. (Not this year!)

But summer is all about small bites and fried artichokes with a garlic aioli are delightful morsels.

Trim your small artichokes by removing the hard leaves. Cut them in half and remove the fuzzy part.

Par boil in an acidulated  water for five minutes and drain well.

Then,  dip the the small half chokes in flour and fry in hot oil for a couple of minutes until golden brown. Drain well. Add salt while still hot and serve hot with bowls of aioli.

If you have big chokes, remove most of the leaves and fry only the soft ones.

Enjoy!

Preserve the freshness.

Those of you who grow your own food know that one minute you are hoping for a harvest, the next minute you have too much to deal with.

Right now in my garden I have these tiny artichokes that are just right for eating.  Here, I've cut them in half, removed the outer leaves and boiled them in acidulated water for ten minutes.

Then, I'll drain them and preserve in two different ways:

1. Freeze
2. Pack in olive oil.

If you pick them young, you will have less waste and the choke, the middle part that is spiny and not edible is not a problem at all in tiny chokes. If it is,  pull out after the chokes are cooled.
Here is how I like to serve them:

Fried artichokes:

Defrost the chokes or pull them out of the pack.
Pull each leaf off.
Dip in your favorite (beer for me) batter and then fry in olive oil until golden.
Serve as appetizer or a side dish with lemony mayo.