Hearth cooking and cheese making

A few weeks ago we attended a Hearth cooking class at Woody Hill B&B in Westerly RI.What a great time we had.There were 8 students and we all took responsibility for specific dishes.Mine was Martha Washingtons spice cake in the dutch oven.I tend to burn whatever I am baking in the dutch oven.It came out great and I was able to replicate it at home in the fireplace as you can see in my photo.There were no burned spots.We also cooked a pork roast,butternut squash soup,cornbread,corn oysters,pear chutney,cranberry relish,Bread pudding.All this was cooked on the hearth,reflector oven(in front of hearth,beehive oven and dutch oven.It was a great night,none of us knew each other so it was nice to meet new people also.Ellen our host was great.I also have made my second attempt at cheddar cheese this week.We will keep our fingers crossed.When you make cheddar cheese you have whey left over.I made ricotta out of the whey and then made a dish I found in Edible Rhody.Gnudi in a lemon thyme sauce.Very similar to gnocci but mostly ricotta only a little flour and you roll into balls instead of off a fork to make ridges.It was a great recipe we really enjoyed it.