As a vegetarian who's either rowing competitively or coaching all day long, Holly Chaafe needs a powerful meat-free diet to fuel her body. The 23-year-old works as assistant director of a school rowing programme, rows for the Auckland regional squad, and is a Coastal rowing representative. She flats in West Auckland, with two others, and shops at Paknsave and Woolworths.
Holly Chaafe was interviewed by Polly Wenlock.
We all shop and cook independently in our flat. I shop for myself, and if I have a friend over, I’ll cook or bake for them.
I have a big restock shop once a month, around twice a week I’ll do top ups like veggies, milk or baking things that I need specifically. The receipts here are from my big shop which I did with my mum this week.
My pantry staples are canned tomatoes, beans, lentils, chocolate (for cooking I swear!) flour, sugar, spices like ground cumin, ground coriander and smoked paprika, milk, oats.
I’d attribute the way I cook to my mum – growing up she was always finding new recipes and trying new things out. Mum educated herself a lot to help me be a vegetarian athlete, she was always telling me, “This is what we’re doing, this is why we’re putting wholegrains in” etc. When I moved out, she gave me a whole lot of cookbooks to use as well – mostly the easy ones though!
I have a few routine meals I know I can make and have for lunch and dinner like the next four days – cook on Sunday and chuck it in the freezer, For meal preps this week I have a peanut-paneer red curry with broccoli, carrots, mushroom, paneer and a red curry paste which will sort me the rest of the week.
If I have extra time in my day then I’ll get creative and try a different recipe, I had a friend over the other night and we made gourmet mousetraps – toast, marmite, mushrooms, red onion, and lots of cheese on the top.
I’m used to having to get up at 4:30am for training, so I prep my breakfast smoothie the night before because I don’t want to wake my flatmates. It’s banana, oats, berries, sometimes I’ll add protein powder or peanut butter in there. Occasionally I’ll freeze a breakfast bake overnight too.
I have another breakfast [after training] when I get to work. Usually that’s a bagel and either peanut butter or marmite which feels like a treat because bagels can be expensive. I need the fuel when I get to work. I can feel myself getting tired or hungry after my row.
I take a lot of ideas from my mum, and if I make something new that I think it's really good I’ll even give that recipe to her to try. One thing I grew up eating a lot was spinach pie with blue cheese, mine is never as good as hers.
I’m a sweet tooth so I bake every week, if I feel like I don't have enough time I’ll buy baked goods or chocolate from the supermarket, but it feels more worth it when I make it.
This week I made a protein slice from the Sustain cookbook – raw slice with toasted buckwheat, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cocoa powder, protein powder and coconut oil to keep it together.
I like to bake for others, If I know they like XYZ then I’ll make it with them in mind. I made chewy ginger molasses cookies this week for a friend who was coming over that doesn’t like chocolate. They weren’t bad for a first try!
Food is my biggest expense outside of rent, but because I don’t eat out at restaurants very often, I spend a little on getting things I actually like. I try stick to essentials but there are always things where I go – “Oh I deserve that I worked really hard at work or training this week, I’ve earnt it.”
I’m not organised enough to budget my groceries, however because my main meals are always based on quite similar on staples, the cost of my monthly stock up never really surprises me. I pick recipes based off my staples that don’t have random little expensive ingredients and if they do I’ll call Mum and ask her for advice on substitutions.
It’s the little biweekly “pop-in” shops that always surprise me as I go in for around five items and come out with around seven and it costing like $50-$60.
My largest expenses are probably tofu and paneer; I try and alternate getting them weekly. They’re like my version of meat. My mum educated me well on getting enough protein as a vegetarian growing up but I also studied sport at university – from that I know you can’t just take out meat and expect the protein to come from salad; that you actually have to substitute a decent amount. The reason I like tofu, paneer and jackfruit is because they don’t really have a natural flavour so you can change the flavour profile to whatever you want it to be. Lots of vegetarian cookbooks have full sections on getting protein nowadays which is great.
Holly's total spend this week: $233.93, which included a bigger shop to last a full month.
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