Showing 10 recent items from a category

I’d like to display 10 recent posts (probably from the current month or year) from the “featured” category in random order, i.e, rotate posts on each refresh/pageload.

I’d like to show small thumbnails (the same image(s) used in the posts just resized to fit) on left, and excerpt on right. So the formatting would look like:

[#1 Post Title]
[80x80 thumbnail] [excerpt, limit to x chars]

[#2 Post Title]
[80x80 thumbnail] [excerpt, limit to x chars]

[#3 Post Title]
[80x80 thumbnail] [excerpt, limit to x chars]

... upto 10 posts

Thanks in advance.