[Q] Wat is currently the safest way to flash custom recovery to a rooted stock phone? topic

I have just got my G2, yay!
LG G2, 32GB
D802 20d-EUR-XX
Android 4.4.2 Kitkat

It's still stock with stock recovery, but I have rooted it successfully with Towelroot. Everything works fine. Now I would like to flash a custom recovery and eventually a custom ROM.

(The thing that scares me, as a former Galaxy Nexus owner, is that I can boot neither into the bootloader nor into recovery by using hardware keys. This is apparently normal, but it means I will be stuck if I ever can't get the phone into a state where ADB works. I can boot into (stock) recovery using ADB, and I can boot into Download Mode using the hardware key.)

- What is the safest way to flash a custom recovery on stock Kitkat 4.4.2? Auto Rec? Is there anything in particular I should be careful about? I read about all kinds of horror stories with malfunctioning touch screens...
- Will I be able to boot into a custom recovery using the hardware keys then?

Thanks!