Take a look at the Template Tags plugin for SP on the Plugins page. https://simple-press.com/download-plugins/ that should do what you want. There are several different ones including a recent posts widgets. The info on how to set them up is here. http://codex.simple-press.com/codex/plugins/our-plugins/the-template-tags-plugin/

I have downloaded the template tags plug in for Simple press but am having a difficult time understanding how to use the Simple Press Plug in Uploader. It has a browse button. I browse to the location of the template tags folder.  If I double click on that, it opens to a second folder called template tags. If I double click on that, it opens to Library and sp template tags. Library contains a lot of PHP folders. But the browse window never populates in the Uploader. What am I doing wrong?

when you use the plugin uploader, you want to browse and upload the zip file (template-tags.zip) – not the files created when you expand the zip archive…  the zip file is the plugin file you downloaded from this site…

Okay. Amazing how things work when you do the right thing. And then, almost by magic, the recent post widget populated the sidebar with ease. Good plug in! Thanks.

glad to help!