I'd like a widget that I can put on my static front page that will allow me to show up to 10 of the most recent blog posts. Right now it seems the only way is to setup a child theme and this is way to cumbersome

Hello,

Thanks for an excellent idea. One reason that we haven't implemented something similar is that there are already really great plugins out there that can accomplish this idea. My favorite one is Ajax Load More, which in it's simplest form lets you add a simple shortcode to your page, like this:

[ajax_load_more]

Which gets your blog without any other options, and allows your users to scroll more and more posts as they go.

I think you missed the bit where I used the word 'simple''
Ajax is way too complicated for what I want to do. 

All I want to do is append my static home page with the blog feed with the existing settings, containers and styles that are in the blog page. Adding [ajax_load_more] to my home page just gives me a huge lump of crappy unformatted text.