Customizable Post Listings for Multiple Recent Lists

My question is is in reference to this plugin:
https://www.coffee2code.com/archives/2004/08/27/plugin-customizable-post-listings/

I’d like to be able to have several recent post lists displayed for several categories. I’m new, so the first thing that came to mind was duplicating the c2c_get_recent_posts function for each of the categories. But, my guess is there is there a more efficient method of achieving multiple lists?

Thanks