Automatically display a default Post Thumbnail image, either the first image attached to a post, or set default images for specific categories, tags, or custom taxonomies. Supports custom fields to ease upgrading. Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/default-thumbnail-plus    

An advanced version of the WordPress Recent Posts widget, allows display of thumbnails, post excerpt, author, comment count, and more. Provides options to trim the title and override the post order and type. Also includes a simple template parser so you can override the default output. Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/recent-posts-plus