It’s hard to believe these tasty treats have only been around for 75 years… at least, used in cookie format. I’d like to hereby thank Ruth Wakefield for her culinary creation when she chopped up a Nestle Semisweet Chocolate Bar to add to her batch of cookies at the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts.

Of course, chocolate chips can be used in a variety of other desserts – melted in or sprinkled on a number of other recipes. And so, here are 10 ideas of how to use chocolate chips to celebrate their national food holiday. (And fear not – there are plenty of other chocolate food holidays to celebrate throughout the year.)

10. Chocolate Fruit and Nut Clusters
Who says chocolate treats can’t be healthy, too?

9. Mexican Hot Chocolate

8. Pumpkin Bread
Again, pairing rich dark chocolate with healthy pumpkin eases the guilt.

7. Rocky Road Popcorn Clusters

6. White Chocolate Macadamia Brownies
I’m a chocolate purist, so I don’t usually count white chocolate –- but this recipe blends the best of both worlds with a full cup of semisweet chocolate chips.

5. Chocolate Zucchini Bread
If your zucchini plant gets as overloaded as mine does, there’s no better way to use it than disguising it in a chocolate loaf!

4. Reduced-Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cutting calories doesn’t mean cutting down on flavor.

3. Low-Fat Peanut-Butter S’Mores

2. Double Chocolate Nut Clusters
Slow cooker dessert recipes are the best! This is super rich and makes a ton, but great for parties and potlucks.

And finally… get ready to drool…

1. Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies
The story behind these cookies goes that a Neiman Marcus customer asked for the recipe for the delicious cookie served in the tea room of the exclusive store, and later noticed that she had been charged – the story varies from $100 to $1,000 – for the recipe. The store insists that the story is made up. The truth is, the cookie is terrific, and the recipe is free!

Blueberries grow on bushes and ripen early summer to early fall (depending on where you live). Picking blueberries is much easier than their thorny counterparts, raspberries and blackberries.

If you visit a you-pick blueberry farm, you should be able to gently run your hand under these bouncy berries and catch them in a basket. If you have to tug at them – or if they’re still white or pinkish in color – then they aren’t ready.

Blueberries don’t ripen after picking like some fruits, so make sure you only pick ripe, plump berries. Eat them, bake with them, freeze them or make preserves with them quickly.

Recipes With Blueberries

Looking for something to make with all those fresh blueberries you’ve picked? We have a few ideas for you: Blueberry Dump Cake, Blueberry Peach Parfait, Blueberry Buckle Coffeecake and Blueberry Swirl Ice Pops.

Even though 2012 was an unusually warm winter for much of the United States, low temperature during the winter is a crucial factor in the survival of plants at specific locations. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature. While the zones do represent the average annual extreme minimum temperatures at a given location during a 30-year period in the past, they do not reflect the coldest it has ever been or ever will be at a specific location.

The USDA zone map had not been updated since 1990, and the new version of the map includes 13 zones, with the addition for the first time of zones 12 (50-60 degrees Fahrenheit) and 13 (60-70 degrees Fahrenheit). Each zone is a 10-degree Fahrenheit band, further divided into 5-degree Fahrenheit zones “A” and “B.” The new map was jointly developed by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Oregon State University’s (OSU) PRISM Climate Group.

For the first time, the USDA zone map offers a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based interactive format and is specifically designed to be Internet-friendly. The map website also incorporates a function that allows gardeners to find their zone by ZIP code.

Zone hardiness is a handy thing to know, but don’t be frustrated when a plant dies, and certainly don’t give up trying to grow that particular plant again. Growing plants can be very complex, and many environmental factors can impact the winter hardiness of a plant – wind, soil type, soil moisture, humidity, pollution, snow and winter sunshine to name a few. Individual gardens may even have localized microclimates that may be warmer or cooler than the general zone for your area, so no hardiness zone map can take the place of the detailed knowledge that gardeners pick up about their own gardens through hands-on experience.