CrestaProject

FREE Crest Posts Widget is a simple but powerful WordPress Widget which displays your posts with thumbnail and many other options like the ability to show the date, the number of comments, to change the length of the excerpt, change the size of thumbnails and much more.
Some features:
<ul>
<li>Easy to use interface</li>
<li>Change post title heading tag</li>
<li>Display the date</li>
<li>Display the comments count</li>
<li>Choose thumbnail size</li>
<li>Choose excerpt lenght</li>
<li>Order posts by date, title, comment count and random</li>
<li>Filter posts by category</li>
</ul>

Plugin Homepage 
http://crestaproject.com/downloads/cresta-post-widget/

Cresta Post Widget FREE

Widget for show all posts or filter by category. Many options available including show thumbnail, excerpt, date and comments count.

littlejon

LJ Random or Recent is a WordPress plugin/widget that allows you to display a list of Random or Recent posts depending of the type of pages that is being displayed. This plugin can also assist your site for SEO by digging up and making your older content relevant.
The idea was taken from the iNove theme which by default has a similar setup in the sidebar, I just wanted a little bit more functionality plus the ability to put the widget anywhere on the page with any theme.

LJ Random Or Recent

LJ Random or Recent is a Wordpress widget that will display a list of Random or Recent posts depending of the type of pages that is being displayed.

Cresta Post Widget FREE vs LJ Random Or Recent