Where kids eat cheap

Frugal shopper, coupon clipper and penny pincher Amy Dunn writes about deals, bargains and more at her Centsible Saver blog ( blogs.newsobserver.com/saver). Here are recent highlights:

Every Tuesday is Kids' Night at Subway restaurants operated by Kangaroo Express, which means kids eat for a buck when you buy a foot-long sub for yourself.

The deal is good from 4 p.m. to close for kids 12 and under.

According to the Kangaroo Express Facebook page, some locations will also have family-friendly activities and coupons available.

There are three Subways operated by Kangaroo Express in the Triangle:

4402 Ten Ten Road, Apex

3505 Kildaire Farm Road, Cary

1900 U.S. 70 E., Garner

Free eats at Earth Fare

Here's another deal that almost makes me wish my kids were young again.

Every Thursday night from 4 to 8, children eat free at Earth Fare with the purchase of an adult meal valued at $5 or more.

In fact, up to six kids can eat free! And if you've got six kids, your budget could probably use a generous offer like this one.

Among the kids' offerings: turkey provolone roll-ups, chicken salad roll-ups and turkey bologna and cheese roll-ups. Sides include veggies and organic fruit. Snack choices range from "Oatmeal Snackimals" to blueberry yogurt.

The kids' meals are regularly priced at $3.99 and are available to children 12 and under.

In case you're not familiar with Earth Fare, it's a small chain of grocery stores based in Asheville that sells organic and locally grown groceries.

In the Triangle, you can find Earth Fare at 10341 Moncreiffe Road in Raleigh in the Brier Creek shopping complex.

Pumpkin supply patchy

A reader emailed me wondering why he was having such a hard time finding canned pumpkin in the grocery store.

"I recall buying canned pumpkin in the summer months before because I bake pumpkin chocolate chip cookies a few times each year," wrote Don Sauer of Raleigh.

Sauer remembered the pumpkin shortage of 2009 and wondered what was going on this year in the pumpkin world.

I went straight to the source, calling the folks at Libby's, which supplies the majority of canned pumpkin in the United States.

"I have good news to report," said Roz O'Hearn, a Libby's spokeswoman. "It's going to be a power year for pumpkins."

It seems pumpkins actually thrive in hot and dry conditions, so this summer's searing heat is producing a bumper crop.

O'Hearn said pumpkin farmers have begun the harvest in Morton, Ill., where most of America's pumpkins destined for commercial canning are grown. Cans of pumpkin should start showing up in grocery stores across the country by mid- to late-September.

"As soon as we pick 'em, we pack 'em," O'Hearn said.

So why can't Don Sauer find pumpkin in his grocery store right now?

There are two main reasons, O'Hearn explained, which go back several years and involve epic flooding, a doctor's list of health foods and Oprah.

Most of the blame for the paucity of pumpkin on store shelves today can still be traced to the 2009 shortage. That year was a disaster in the pumpkin fields, when record rainfall transformed fields into lakes. Pumpkin was so scarce that some Thanksgiving feasts went without pumpkin pie that year.

So when the 2010 harvest hit the store shelves, "people bought it up like crazy," O'Hearn said.

On top of that, more and more people are buying pumpkin year-round, O'Hearn said. And that's where Oprah comes in.

Once considered a seasonal item purchased for Thanksgiving tables, pumpkin's popularity got a huge boost from Dr. Steven Pratt's 2003 book, "SuperFoods RX: Fourteen Foods that Will Change Your Life."

High in fiber, low in calories and rich in carotenoids, pumpkin made the list, along with blueberries, wild salmon, spinach and 10 other foods.

So when Pratt appeared on the Oprah show in 2004 touting pumpkin as a possible way to slow aging and reduce the risk of cancer, pumpkin's reputation as a mere pie filling was forever altered.

"It's no longer a seasonal item," O'Hearn said.

Sauer told me he eventually found a few cans of organic pumpkin on the shelves at Super Target, which he purchased to make his cookies. It was expensive, he said, "but I was happy to pay the price to have some."

In a few more weeks, pumpkin should be plentiful (and more reasonably priced) once again. But when it's gone, that's it. There will be no more until fall 2012.