A little while back I blogged about the need for a new kind of widget. Well Justin Tadlock has gone and made one. Check out the beta of his new Query Posts widget.
His widget lets you get a selection of posts based on your own criteria. Most of the query_posts options are there so if you want most recent? easy. How about most recent from a particular category? Yep. Want to sort them in a different order? Want to sort according to the most recent category? want 5, 10, 15 or more? No problems.