Can you configure "recent items" menu?

[Gregory Cortelyou]

I would like to be able to use the recent items option in the apple 
menu to open documents that I work on all the time. I have noticed that 
the only documents listed in that category are from the OS X "native" 
applications. Documents created in Word or Appleworks are not listed. 
You can configure the number of documents listed but I can't find any 
place that lets you control what type of documents are listed. 
Applications recently used seems to be able to list all applications. 
Anybody know anything about this?
Greg