Thanksgiving in space: Turkey, green beans & even football

CAPE CANAVERAL (AP) - Turkey and football will be the main Thanksgiving headliners up on the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, the station's commander, is serving as Thanksgiving chef for the six-person crew. He showed off the specialties he'll be preparing in a video this week.

"It's going to be a little bit different for us up here in space," he said, "but I'm going to try to make it as much like home as we can."

On Thursday -- a regular workday for the crew -- Kimbrough will warm up pouches of sliced smoked turkey, candied yams, and cherry and blueberry cobbler. He'll also add water to the bags of freeze-dried cornbread dressing, green beans and mushrooms and mashed potatoes.

"You can't have a Thanksgiving meal without green beans," he noted.

Mission Control promises to beam up some live football games -- "to complete the experience," Kimbrough said.

It will be the second Thanksgiving in space for Kimbrough, who's one month into a four-month mission, and the third for American Peggy Whitson, who arrived at the orbiting lab Saturday for a six-month stay. One Frenchman and three Russians round off the crew.

Kimbrough said he and the others will share what they're thankful for this Thanksgiving. No 1 on the list, he said, is being safe in space.

NASA, meanwhile, is sharing its recipe for "out of this world" cornbread dressing. It's straight from Johnson Space Center's food lab, "no freeze-drying required."

LINK: Try the recipe (no rockets required)