In 1986 I briefly lived in a squat in North London, and the gas had been disconnected. We cooked everything in the Microwave, and we ate nutritious and completely unexpected (to me) normal meals, like Lasagne made with dried pasta, which uses cottage cheese to boost the moisture content so the sheets of Pasta soften. I appreciate at this point some people are saying "normal??" but truly, compared to the alternatives, using a more liquid cheese to make a meal which conforms in all other respects to your expectations, was huge.

(gas reconnection was hard. Electricity, for reasons I never entirely understood, was easy to get reconnected to squats, at the time)

My co-occupants had a lot more experience than I of this life on the edge. I learned a lot.