thank you for the ideas. mushroom bourguinon sounds great. im not a vegetarian in general but for religious reasons i am vegetarian at least once a week. so this works out! and less work :)

The mushroom bourguinon looks wonderful, and as an omnivore, I'll try that. Otherwise, go with Julia's Coq au Vin. It's wonderful. If you come up with a special twist of your own, please do post it!

I was just about to post smittenkitchen's mushroom bourguignon recipe.. It's fantastic.

smittenkitchen has a great recipe for mushroom bourguignon. I made it last winter and it was great. Here's the link:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/mushroom-bourguignon/

probably not exactly what you're looking for, but it was great.

Most times, you don't want chicken pieces to cook for the same length of time as beef. Here is Julia Child's recipe for Coq au Vin, with is essentially "chicken bourguignon," chicken braised in red wine with onions and mushrooms. It takes about an hour.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/recipe?id=7113750

I think that you could certainly use lamb to good effect. Do you eat lamb? Can you get or make lamb stock?

If you are going to use chicken thighs or pork shoulder, I would not simply use a bourguignon recipe and replace the protein. Instead, I'd make a similar dish that is more suited to those meats. Have you considered coq au vin?