What to Do With Leftover Champagne

As you might know from my recent post about my Christmas, we decided to ring the New Year in with a little champagnia.

Say it: Sh-am-pan-e-ya.  Feels a little more sophisticated, wouldn't you say?

I know, I'm strange.  But secretly you know you'll say it like that from now on.

And as nice as it was to enjoy a little champagne in my wedding flute for the first time since my wedding, there was still plenty leftover as the day slipped from the celebratory first of January to the mundane, back to work, second of January.

I had no other alternative but to discover recipes where I could put my leftover juice to good use.

Recipe: Champagne Chicken
Source: http://www.food.com/recipe/champagne-chicken-187370
Time: 30 minutes (or longer if you cook while paying bills and waiting for your hubby to get home)
Ease: 1
Taste: 6
Leftover Value: No leftovers!
Down the Drain or Keep it in the Strainer: Keep it in the Strainer!

This recipe falls into the category of things I'd like to try again, but more than likely won't.  Which is why I rated it as a Keep in the Strainer item.  The only reason I probably won't make it again is that hubby wasn't thrilled with it.  But, I have to give the disclaimer that hubby doesn't really like any chicken and cream sauce meals.  This one was not an exception.

I did make a few adjustments, only one of which I know effected the sauce greatly.

I realized the morning of the day I planned to make this (that would be boring, mundane, January 2nd) that I didn't have any heavy cream.  In fact, I realized that I had just recently thrown out the remaining dregs I did have of heavy cream when I cleaned the fridge out of items with questionable expiration dates.  (Trust me, you do not want to know what that means to me in my world).  

Note how the sauce looks rather watery in the above picture.  This is due to the fact that I substituted half and half bought at the grocery store down the street from me since they failed to have any heavy cream in stock.  The flavor was still good, yet it lacked the thickness that this sauce clearly should have.

Second, the recipe called for six tablespoons of lemon juice.  That's a lot of lemon juice!  

For fear that it would taste completely like lemon with chicken instead of champagne chicken with a hint of lemon, I used roughly four tablespoons of lemon juice.  To my surprise, the lemon was not overpowering, and next time I would try it with the recommended amount. 

It wasn't until I had chopped up potatoes to bake as a side dish that I realized the recipe suggested serving the chicken with rice, wild rice, or spinach fettuccine.  I was a little sad because those suggestions all seemed perfect.

But then I bit into my perfect roasted potatoes and all was right in the world.

Up next: Day Two of Leftover Champagne: Cornish Hens