First of all I wouldn't think about the powserline technology is too complex, may be wi-fi can be possible, even though you have to deal with microwave frequency.
The best solution is as you said to find an Ethernet Shield, try to find an open hardware solution (drawing of the circuit). If you want to deal your own, you have to fnid a chip and threre are available, have a look on RS components. Probably most of the chips available are SMD, which means that is a pain to solder them, unless you are pretty clever and you have a microscope.
You can find a chip or a ready made solution here; http://www.beyondlogic.org/etherip/ip.htm
You could switch to Rabbit semiconductors, they have microcontroller ready with ethernet, but the dev kit is more expensive and the programming too.
This is a chip that you can use; http://www.wiznet.co.kr/en/pro02.php?&ss[2]=1&page=1&num=102